7 ms·

Philae Found

1238 points by de_dave 10y ago

netgusto 10y ago
This made me smile. Nice news !
- AstroJetson 10y ago
  Me too, it's good to know that Philae hadn't bounced off into space.
  - scoot 10y ago
    RTFA. It was already known it had landed, just not exactly where.
    - AstroJetson 10y ago
      Yes, they knew it landed, they got data back and then other than the last burst, never heard from it again. That's from the article and other news sources. Nice to know that it was still there after the last burst, that it hadn't been swept into space. And from the pictures it's going to be on there for awhile.
      - scoot 10y ago
        Then RYFC: "it's good to know that Philae hadn't bounced off into space." does not correlate with someone who had bother to read the article before commenting. You can't "bounce" from a stationary position, but glad to see you've now caught up.
infodroid 10y ago
The hi-res image shows how just how unlucky a landing spot this was. http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/OSIRIS_narrow-angle_camera_image_with_Philae_2_September http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/OSIRIS_narro...
- HerpDerpLerp 10y ago
  luckier than bouncing off completely :) Shame the spears could not stick it on at the first impact.
- achr2 10y ago
  Or perhaps lucky, since without the outcropping it may have bounced off completely...
- spuz 10y ago
  I'm surprised at how rugged the surface looks in these high-res images. Especially compared to the imagined flat landing areas we were used to seeing in the run up to the landing [1]. Just shows how difficult a task it was to land and keep the craft the right way up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#/media/File:Rosetta%27s_Philae_on_Comet_67P_Churyumov-Gerasimenko.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#/media/Fil...
  - Coding_Cat 10y ago
    There is no atmosphere and thus no wind (let alone flowing water), so no natural forces to smooth it out. On a related note, moon dust is apparently incredibly sharp for the same reason.
    - hcrisp 10y ago
      And very low gravity to cause landslides and even the terrain out.
  - wcoenen 10y ago
    It was aimed at a flat spot, but when it failed to attach to the surface it bounced and floated for almost 2 hours, hitting the surface again 1 km away[1][2]. Its speed of 38 cm/s during that time was below escape velocity but not by much. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2eqH3Bz4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2eqH3Bz4c [2] http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/14/three-touchdowns-for-rosettas_lander/ http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/14/three-touchdowns-for...
dandare 10y ago
Nice, but why is this information so "all-important"? How is it going to advance our knowledge of ... anything?
- gokhan 10y ago
  Maybe next time, we try a different landing method, eh? How do you learn from your mistakes without knowing them in the first place?
- vog 10y ago
  You may wish to actually read the article: > “This wonderful news means that we now have the missing ‘ground-truth’ information needed to put Philae’s three days of science into proper context, now that we know where that ground actually is!” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.
- cvik 10y ago
  Philae did send data for three days (unless i miss-remember). Knowing where that data was taken helps put it into context. So quite important for the mission.
- speeder 10y ago
  I am assuming you don't want to know why the whole mission is important (that should be obvious), and that instead you want to know why taking a photo of Philae is important. It is important because Philae did made measurements and sent the data to us, but we didn't knew what the measurements measured, now we know. It would be like throwing a ball that can tell about how much a place is wet in a random direction, and conclude that some place is 90% wet... Then, what place it was? A lake? A swamp? A beach? And then you find a picture of it in a bog, and conclude the bog was 90% wet.
gokhan 10y ago
Unless other parts of the comet is more flat, that landing gear design seems clearly wrong. It included bolting itself to the surface, if I remember correctly, but it seems almost impossible to fixate three legs with almost no gravity on that surface.
- ragebol 10y ago
  IIRC, the designers had little idea what kind of surface the comet would have. Could be ice, could be rocks, could be dust. What kind of landing gear + fixation gear would have been better?
  - aruggirello 10y ago
    INANE (I Am Not A NASA Engineer), but perhaps 4 or better yet more legs arranged in a tetrahedron or analogous polyhedron would better ensure the lander did not get stuck inside a crevasse; an inner rotating body could then bring the lander into a working position. The more the legs, the higher the chance the lander could 'roll' to a lower ground when initially bouncing off the surface, but the optimal number of legs could be determined in advance by simulating the terrain (you wouldn't want it to roll all the way down a slope, ending at the bottom of a crevasse etc.). Harpoons protruding from each leg could be fired automatically as soon as a stable enough position was detected, or manually when deemed safe; having more legs available could only improve chances of getting a safe fixation.
    - dotancohen 10y ago
      How much mass would another leg have? Which scientific instrument with that mass would you suggest to eliminate for that extra leg?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - whorleater 10y ago
      Philae had a harpoon to anchor itself to the surface, but ended up malfunctioning. I assume had it actually fired, the engineers balanced the need for extra landing gear and scientific instruments quite well.
sqldba 10y ago
Poor little thing. God speed.
Roritharr 10y ago
Now to the hard part: Bringing our boy back home.
- 5xman 10y ago
  Was Matt Damon inside?
thr0waway1239 10y ago
"At 2.7 km, the resolution of the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera is about 5 cm/pixel, sufficient to reveal characteristic features of Philae’s 1 m-sized body and its legs, as seen in these definitive pictures." I looked at the pictures and the human eye can barely see the lander. Considering that the chances of losing these landers is not that low, I don't understand why they don't make them visually more distinctive. Andrew Ng gave a talk recently where he talks about designing the autonomous cars not for aesthetics, but predictability (via visual distinctiveness). [1] In the same spirit, shouldn't there be efforts to make these spacecraft modules more visually distinctive? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eJhcxfYR4I&t=16m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eJhcxfYR4I&t=16m35s
- matt-attack 10y ago
  I'm confused about the appearance of autonomous cars. When is the car observing itself? How does its own appearance come into play?
  - thr0waway1239 10y ago
    I believe he is talking about an autonomy-enabled region, which is full of autonomous cars. It includes things such as modifying even the road infrastructure.
  - fanquake 10y ago
    It's not observing itself, it's being observed by other autonomous vehicles.
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  My entirely uneducated guess is that a layer of paint would impede the cooling of electronics that depend on the housing to dissipate heat.Paint would also absorb more solar heat than plain metal.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    A dye bomb is used for aerial crash/rescue. That would contaminate a surface, but also provide a possible visual marker. Maybe several launched away from the lander, but which could be used to triangulate it, in the rare case that might actually be of interest. I suspect there's a lot of re-thinking of how to land on a comet going on as well.
luso_brazilian 10y ago
The XKCD already updated the live comic about this subject [1]. All panels are available at its sister wiki [2] In my opinion it is a beautiful work of art, pushing the limits of what the media allow the artist to do (the media in this case being comic strips in the webcomic format. [1] https://xkcd.com/1446/ https://xkcd.com/1446/ [2] https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1446:_Landing/All_pictures https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1446:_Landing/All...
- thr0waway1239 10y ago
  Thank you! To those who didn't click on the second link, you really should. It is like a journal of the lander, except in webcomic format.
  - sundarurfriend 10y ago
    Wow. I had only mild interest in the news and was about to close this tab after I learned what the hell Philae is (without opening TFA), but this comic series made me excited about the project and made me check out the article. Good job, Randall, and thanks!
  - Yhippa 10y ago
    That comic actually helped me understand much better why the OP article was so important.
- tarr11 10y ago
  Looks like there's an error on that page, and it's only showing a static image.
  - luso_brazilian 10y ago
    First first link is "live" in the sense that the panel changes based on the current status of the lander. The second link, that's the one that has all the panels.
mardoqueo 10y ago
miviiida :)
DrNuke 10y ago
This is even more incredible than the already unbelievable amaze generated by this mission as a whole. Hat off.
newscracker 10y ago
I watched this documentary called "To catch a comet" about the Rosette/Philae mission to comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The achievement of getting to the comet and landing Philae, like many other achievements in space, is really phenomenal. So many things could've gone wrong, but the fact that the worst was Philae bouncing and getting stuck in a dark place (and not being able to perform fully) is a huge success beset by an issue of a smaller magnitude. The description of the documentary says [1]: > Unable to carry enough fuel owing to weight restrictions, the Rosetta scientists devised a delicate cat and mouse trajectory to reach their distant destination. In the ten years Rosetta had been in space she flew around the Earth three times, Mars once and the asteroid belt twice, to gain the momentum she needed to reach her destination. In the months before landing, the team navigated Rosetta safely to a world never before observed at such distances or accuracy. Rosetta orbited the comet before releasing Philae onto the surface. Quoting from the article of this thread: > “We were beginning to think that Philae would remain lost forever. It is incredible we have captured this at the final hour.” This brings a much better ending for the people who worked on the mission for more than 30 years. [1] We tend to anthropomorphize things like spacecrafts, landers, rovers and many other inanimate objects. I think for the team (and many others following this news), this photo would be like being able to see a dear friend one last time, say goodbye in their minds and have some kind of closure. The Wikipedia article, and especially the section titled "Landing and surface operations" [2], is also quite interesting to read. [1]: http://www.pbs.org/program/catch-comet/ http://www.pbs.org/program/catch-comet/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#Landing_and_surface_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#Landing_an...
- WestCoastJustin 10y ago
  I tried to find the full version of the PBS "To catch a comet" about the Rosette/Philae mission but came up empty handed. Searching google, I was able to find a talk by Mark McCaughrean (ESA) called "Rosetta: to Catch a Comet". Been watching it for about 30 minutes and it's awesome. So, for anyone else looking for something to watch, this worked out great. Pretty amazing talk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOiY-OCCRjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOiY-OCCRjs
- kordless 10y ago
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andreygrehov 10y ago
Off-topic, but why do they usually shoot black and white? Is it something to do with the file size?
- chillydawg 10y ago
  They probably shot it in several spectra and this is their highest resolution one. It might not even be visible light.
- hbosch 10y ago
  Not sure how accurate it is, but an article found via cursory Googling[0] makes it seem like a true-color photo doesn't have as much scientific value as other spectrum recording photography - different filters over the monochrome camera can make it easier to see heat, minerals, radiation, etc. Goes on to mention producing a true-color photo is kind of a pain in the ass for these probes. 0. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3088/why-are-images-from-space-probes-always-in-black-and-white http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3088/why-are-images...
  - ygra 10y ago
    Cameras often have wavelength filters to allow recording only certain wave lengths, that can be switched. So taking a colour photo requires three different exposures. Depending on how long you can take a single picture and how much changes in between you may not really get a useful result. A Bayer filter like in common digital cameras these days would also reduce resolution and restrict you at the sensor level to colour photos. About the only use for colour photos in space is PR with non-scientists anyway. That was one major obstacle the Hubble Space Telescope had to face. It's a useful component, to be sure, but not one to justify adding much more weight or cost to a planned mission in all cases. In case of Rosetta/Philae the probe was very weight-restricted, taking even a very long course towards the comet to save fuel since it didn't have much.
    - dajohnson89 10y ago
      PR for non scientists is extremely important. Non scientists fund the missions.
bjd2385 10y ago
What's that rather straight `rod`-like protrusion to the lower-left? Looks like some kind of antenna.
- proactivesvcs 10y ago
  Half way down http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37276221 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37276221 is an overlay describing the parts. It sitting on its side, so I think you're referring to one of its three legs jutting out.
proactivesvcs 10y ago
I found ESA's "Rosetta and Philae Cartoons" videos strangely touching: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgx5PMpgonqUD1aO3g0bZ_a7VKg8VGTeS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgx5PMpgonqUD1aO3g0bZ... I hope they finish the series!
huhtenberg 10y ago
Is there a map that shows its original landing site and the final resting place?
- simonh 10y ago
  Here you go: http://static.keptelenseg.hu/p/ba7a0e382320f9656ef892707c673df8.jpg http://static.keptelenseg.hu/p/ba7a0e382320f9656ef892707c673...
  - huhtenberg 10y ago
    Good find, thanks!
b1gtuna 10y ago
Haha itsy bitsy little space craft hiding behind a rock!
chakalakasp 10y ago
NASA and ESA's recent push to land things on comets and asteroids makes me pause and wonder if they have in the last decade or so calculated the orbit of an object that concerns them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mturmon 10y ago
  Finding near earth objects is done in the open: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ The succession of missions (going back 20 years now) is here: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/#spacecraft http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/#spacecraft
lucb1e 10y ago
I didn't get why this was important and the article didn't reveal it upon skimming. Since it seems to get people very enthusiastic I gave it a proper read. After 11 paragraphs, the actual news is revealed: > “This [...] means that we now have the missing ‘ground-truth’ information needed to put Philae’s three days of science into proper context, now that we know where that ground actually is!”
- dmix 10y ago
  Also, the third paragraph shows why it was relevant: > The images also provide proof of Philae’s orientation, making it clear why establishing communications was so difficult following its landing on 12 November 2014. Mostly the curiosity of the public and more importantly the scientists who worked so hard on the project only to have their lander not land properly. Otherwise the fact that Philae was lost almost immediately upon landing has been a huge story line this past year. I believe the blog assumed the readers would know this. A CNN article would typically provide back story but this is original source from ESA.
- peter303 10y ago
  There were a couple of mechanisms intended to hook it upright to the surface upon landing. Instead it bounced 2 or 3 times and landed tilted in some rocks. The battery was only sufficient for a few hours of pictures and other experiments. If it had landed upright and charged by solar panels it could have operated a long time, perhaps until now. The hope was that some of the solar panels were exposed it might revive after a couple of weeks. There was a hint it called the orbitor at least once, but no more data.
- Sharlin 10y ago
  It is scientifically useful, but mostly people are just pleasantly surprised that the proverbial needle in the haystack was actually found before the mission of Rosetta itself ends, and happy to get closure for the story of the little probe that went MIA. It's an emotional response first and foremost, just being human.
- edge17 10y ago
  Scientifically speaking, a successful mission is one where you've gathered all the data for analysis and can work with it long after the mission is over. It's like, if SpaceX launches a rocket and it explodes - a real failure would be if they captured no telemetry and had no idea what happened vs knowing everything that happened and being able to replay the mission after the fact. Often times the data is far more important than the outcome.
cJ0th 10y ago
Rosetta also tweeted an update ;) https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta/status/772818246059823104 https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta/status/772818246059823104
usaphp 10y ago
From Wikipedia about the comet: "One of the most outstanding discoveries of the mission so far is the detection of large amounts of free molecular oxygen (O 2) gas surrounding the comet. Current solar system models suggest the molecular oxygen should have disappeared by the time 67P was created, about 4.6 billion years ago in a violent and hot process that would have caused the oxygen to react with hydrogen and form water. Molecular oxygen has never before been detected in cometary comas. In situ measurements indicate that the O 2/H 2O ratio is isotropic in the coma and does not change systematically with heliocentric distance, suggesting that primordial O 2 was incorporated into the nucleus during the comet's formation. Detection of molecular nitrogen (N 2) in the comet suggests that its cometary grains formed in low-temperature conditions below 30 K (−243.2 °C; −405.7 °F)." [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasime...
saif_2577 10y ago
http://instagram.com/saif_2577 http://instagram.com/saif_2577
zygomega 10y ago
Does anyone know why communication is being shut down? Can they leave it on so we can get telemetry?
movedx 10y ago
At some point in the future, someone is going to fly to that comet, land, get out of their vessel and walk over to Philae and smile, give it a pat on the head, and then take it home; someone in the future is going to be lucky enough to experience that task and become a part of its history.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  Think of the collectible value!
- gene-h 10y ago
  And it might still work. One of the neat things about Philae is that it's rated to withstand temperatures down to −60 °C. Most other space probes(and electronics in general) are not rated for such low temperatures and will experience solder joint failures if such temperatures are reached. Most space probes stay above their failure temperature with heaters, if said heaters fail, the space probe dies and won't function even if it warms back up. This happened to the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. We don't know just how low Philae can go, however, there is a good chance it's electronics won't break below the rated temperature.
  - widforss 10y ago
    Worth mentioning is that objects keep their thermal energy for much longer in a vacuum since there is nothing that can conduct the heat away, so the heaters does not have to output that much energy.
- junke 10y ago
  Then someone will update the XKCD comic with a similar smile on their face.
- fogleman 10y ago
  I don't think you can really walk on the surface. There's hardly any gravity.
  - 10y ago
fuhrysteve 10y ago
Why did it take so many months for the orbiter to get a photo? Compared to the rest of the achievements of this mission, it seems like this should have been relatively easy: 67P is all of like 2.5 miles wide and the orbit is at like 10 miles. You'd think that a few high res photos in a single orbit would capture nearly every inch of the entire rock.

Philae Found

1238 points by de_dave 10y ago

netgusto 10y ago

This made me smile. Nice news !

AstroJetson 10y ago
Me too, it's good to know that Philae hadn't bounced off into space.
- scoot 10y ago
  RTFA. It was already known it had landed, just not exactly where.
  - AstroJetson 10y ago
    Yes, they knew it landed, they got data back and then other than the last burst, never heard from it again. That's from the article and other news sources. Nice to know that it was still there after the last burst, that it hadn't been swept into space. And from the pictures it's going to be on there for awhile.
    - scoot 10y ago
      Then RYFC: "it's good to know that Philae hadn't bounced off into space." does not correlate with someone who had bother to read the article before commenting. You can't "bounce" from a stationary position, but glad to see you've now caught up.

infodroid 10y ago

The hi-res image shows how just how unlucky a landing spot this was. http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/OSIRIS_narrow-angle_camera_image_with_Philae_2_September http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/OSIRIS_narro...

HerpDerpLerp 10y ago
luckier than bouncing off completely :) Shame the spears could not stick it on at the first impact.
achr2 10y ago
Or perhaps lucky, since without the outcropping it may have bounced off completely...
spuz 10y ago
I'm surprised at how rugged the surface looks in these high-res images. Especially compared to the imagined flat landing areas we were used to seeing in the run up to the landing [1]. Just shows how difficult a task it was to land and keep the craft the right way up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#/media/File:Rosetta%27s_Philae_on_Comet_67P_Churyumov-Gerasimenko.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#/media/Fil...
- Coding_Cat 10y ago
  There is no atmosphere and thus no wind (let alone flowing water), so no natural forces to smooth it out. On a related note, moon dust is apparently incredibly sharp for the same reason.
  - hcrisp 10y ago
    And very low gravity to cause landslides and even the terrain out.
- wcoenen 10y ago
  It was aimed at a flat spot, but when it failed to attach to the surface it bounced and floated for almost 2 hours, hitting the surface again 1 km away[1][2]. Its speed of 38 cm/s during that time was below escape velocity but not by much. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2eqH3Bz4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2eqH3Bz4c [2] http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/14/three-touchdowns-for-rosettas_lander/ http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/14/three-touchdowns-for...

dandare 10y ago

Nice, but why is this information so "all-important"? How is it going to advance our knowledge of ... anything?

gokhan 10y ago
Maybe next time, we try a different landing method, eh? How do you learn from your mistakes without knowing them in the first place?
vog 10y ago
You may wish to actually read the article: > “This wonderful news means that we now have the missing ‘ground-truth’ information needed to put Philae’s three days of science into proper context, now that we know where that ground actually is!” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.
cvik 10y ago
Philae did send data for three days (unless i miss-remember). Knowing where that data was taken helps put it into context. So quite important for the mission.
speeder 10y ago
I am assuming you don't want to know why the whole mission is important (that should be obvious), and that instead you want to know why taking a photo of Philae is important. It is important because Philae did made measurements and sent the data to us, but we didn't knew what the measurements measured, now we know. It would be like throwing a ball that can tell about how much a place is wet in a random direction, and conclude that some place is 90% wet... Then, what place it was? A lake? A swamp? A beach? And then you find a picture of it in a bog, and conclude the bog was 90% wet.

gokhan 10y ago

Unless other parts of the comet is more flat, that landing gear design seems clearly wrong. It included bolting itself to the surface, if I remember correctly, but it seems almost impossible to fixate three legs with almost no gravity on that surface.

ragebol 10y ago
IIRC, the designers had little idea what kind of surface the comet would have. Could be ice, could be rocks, could be dust. What kind of landing gear + fixation gear would have been better?
- aruggirello 10y ago
  INANE (I Am Not A NASA Engineer), but perhaps 4 or better yet more legs arranged in a tetrahedron or analogous polyhedron would better ensure the lander did not get stuck inside a crevasse; an inner rotating body could then bring the lander into a working position. The more the legs, the higher the chance the lander could 'roll' to a lower ground when initially bouncing off the surface, but the optimal number of legs could be determined in advance by simulating the terrain (you wouldn't want it to roll all the way down a slope, ending at the bottom of a crevasse etc.). Harpoons protruding from each leg could be fired automatically as soon as a stable enough position was detected, or manually when deemed safe; having more legs available could only improve chances of getting a safe fixation.
  - dotancohen 10y ago
    How much mass would another leg have? Which scientific instrument with that mass would you suggest to eliminate for that extra leg?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - whorleater 10y ago
    Philae had a harpoon to anchor itself to the surface, but ended up malfunctioning. I assume had it actually fired, the engineers balanced the need for extra landing gear and scientific instruments quite well.

sqldba 10y ago

Poor little thing. God speed.

Roritharr 10y ago

Now to the hard part: Bringing our boy back home.

5xman 10y ago
Was Matt Damon inside?

thr0waway1239 10y ago

"At 2.7 km, the resolution of the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera is about 5 cm/pixel, sufficient to reveal characteristic features of Philae’s 1 m-sized body and its legs, as seen in these definitive pictures." I looked at the pictures and the human eye can barely see the lander. Considering that the chances of losing these landers is not that low, I don't understand why they don't make them visually more distinctive. Andrew Ng gave a talk recently where he talks about designing the autonomous cars not for aesthetics, but predictability (via visual distinctiveness). [1] In the same spirit, shouldn't there be efforts to make these spacecraft modules more visually distinctive? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eJhcxfYR4I&t=16m35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eJhcxfYR4I&t=16m35s

matt-attack 10y ago
I'm confused about the appearance of autonomous cars. When is the car observing itself? How does its own appearance come into play?
- thr0waway1239 10y ago
  I believe he is talking about an autonomy-enabled region, which is full of autonomous cars. It includes things such as modifying even the road infrastructure.
- fanquake 10y ago
  It's not observing itself, it's being observed by other autonomous vehicles.
whamlastxmas 10y ago
My entirely uneducated guess is that a layer of paint would impede the cooling of electronics that depend on the housing to dissipate heat.Paint would also absorb more solar heat than plain metal.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  A dye bomb is used for aerial crash/rescue. That would contaminate a surface, but also provide a possible visual marker. Maybe several launched away from the lander, but which could be used to triangulate it, in the rare case that might actually be of interest. I suspect there's a lot of re-thinking of how to land on a comet going on as well.

luso_brazilian 10y ago

The XKCD already updated the live comic about this subject [1]. All panels are available at its sister wiki [2] In my opinion it is a beautiful work of art, pushing the limits of what the media allow the artist to do (the media in this case being comic strips in the webcomic format. [1] https://xkcd.com/1446/ https://xkcd.com/1446/ [2] https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1446:_Landing/All_pictures https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1446:_Landing/All...

thr0waway1239 10y ago
Thank you! To those who didn't click on the second link, you really should. It is like a journal of the lander, except in webcomic format.
- sundarurfriend 10y ago
  Wow. I had only mild interest in the news and was about to close this tab after I learned what the hell Philae is (without opening TFA), but this comic series made me excited about the project and made me check out the article. Good job, Randall, and thanks!
- Yhippa 10y ago
  That comic actually helped me understand much better why the OP article was so important.
tarr11 10y ago
Looks like there's an error on that page, and it's only showing a static image.
- luso_brazilian 10y ago
  First first link is "live" in the sense that the panel changes based on the current status of the lander. The second link, that's the one that has all the panels.

mardoqueo 10y ago

miviiida :)

DrNuke 10y ago

This is even more incredible than the already unbelievable amaze generated by this mission as a whole. Hat off.

newscracker 10y ago

I watched this documentary called "To catch a comet" about the Rosette/Philae mission to comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The achievement of getting to the comet and landing Philae, like many other achievements in space, is really phenomenal. So many things could've gone wrong, but the fact that the worst was Philae bouncing and getting stuck in a dark place (and not being able to perform fully) is a huge success beset by an issue of a smaller magnitude. The description of the documentary says [1]: > Unable to carry enough fuel owing to weight restrictions, the Rosetta scientists devised a delicate cat and mouse trajectory to reach their distant destination. In the ten years Rosetta had been in space she flew around the Earth three times, Mars once and the asteroid belt twice, to gain the momentum she needed to reach her destination. In the months before landing, the team navigated Rosetta safely to a world never before observed at such distances or accuracy. Rosetta orbited the comet before releasing Philae onto the surface. Quoting from the article of this thread: > “We were beginning to think that Philae would remain lost forever. It is incredible we have captured this at the final hour.” This brings a much better ending for the people who worked on the mission for more than 30 years. [1] We tend to anthropomorphize things like spacecrafts, landers, rovers and many other inanimate objects. I think for the team (and many others following this news), this photo would be like being able to see a dear friend one last time, say goodbye in their minds and have some kind of closure. The Wikipedia article, and especially the section titled "Landing and surface operations" [2], is also quite interesting to read. [1]: http://www.pbs.org/program/catch-comet/ http://www.pbs.org/program/catch-comet/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#Landing_and_surface_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft)#Landing_an...

WestCoastJustin 10y ago
I tried to find the full version of the PBS "To catch a comet" about the Rosette/Philae mission but came up empty handed. Searching google, I was able to find a talk by Mark McCaughrean (ESA) called "Rosetta: to Catch a Comet". Been watching it for about 30 minutes and it's awesome. So, for anyone else looking for something to watch, this worked out great. Pretty amazing talk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOiY-OCCRjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOiY-OCCRjs
kordless 10y ago

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andreygrehov 10y ago

Off-topic, but why do they usually shoot black and white? Is it something to do with the file size?

chillydawg 10y ago
They probably shot it in several spectra and this is their highest resolution one. It might not even be visible light.
hbosch 10y ago
Not sure how accurate it is, but an article found via cursory Googling[0] makes it seem like a true-color photo doesn't have as much scientific value as other spectrum recording photography - different filters over the monochrome camera can make it easier to see heat, minerals, radiation, etc. Goes on to mention producing a true-color photo is kind of a pain in the ass for these probes. 0. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3088/why-are-images-from-space-probes-always-in-black-and-white http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3088/why-are-images...
- ygra 10y ago
  Cameras often have wavelength filters to allow recording only certain wave lengths, that can be switched. So taking a colour photo requires three different exposures. Depending on how long you can take a single picture and how much changes in between you may not really get a useful result. A Bayer filter like in common digital cameras these days would also reduce resolution and restrict you at the sensor level to colour photos. About the only use for colour photos in space is PR with non-scientists anyway. That was one major obstacle the Hubble Space Telescope had to face. It's a useful component, to be sure, but not one to justify adding much more weight or cost to a planned mission in all cases. In case of Rosetta/Philae the probe was very weight-restricted, taking even a very long course towards the comet to save fuel since it didn't have much.
  - dajohnson89 10y ago
    PR for non scientists is extremely important. Non scientists fund the missions.

bjd2385 10y ago

What's that rather straight `rod`-like protrusion to the lower-left? Looks like some kind of antenna.

proactivesvcs 10y ago
Half way down http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37276221 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37276221 is an overlay describing the parts. It sitting on its side, so I think you're referring to one of its three legs jutting out.

proactivesvcs 10y ago

I found ESA's "Rosetta and Philae Cartoons" videos strangely touching: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgx5PMpgonqUD1aO3g0bZ_a7VKg8VGTeS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgx5PMpgonqUD1aO3g0bZ... I hope they finish the series!

huhtenberg 10y ago

Is there a map that shows its original landing site and the final resting place?

simonh 10y ago
Here you go: http://static.keptelenseg.hu/p/ba7a0e382320f9656ef892707c673df8.jpg http://static.keptelenseg.hu/p/ba7a0e382320f9656ef892707c673...
- huhtenberg 10y ago
  Good find, thanks!

b1gtuna 10y ago

Haha itsy bitsy little space craft hiding behind a rock!

chakalakasp 10y ago

NASA and ESA's recent push to land things on comets and asteroids makes me pause and wonder if they have in the last decade or so calculated the orbit of an object that concerns them.

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mturmon 10y ago
Finding near earth objects is done in the open: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ The succession of missions (going back 20 years now) is here: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/#spacecraft http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/#spacecraft

lucb1e 10y ago

I didn't get why this was important and the article didn't reveal it upon skimming. Since it seems to get people very enthusiastic I gave it a proper read. After 11 paragraphs, the actual news is revealed: > “This [...] means that we now have the missing ‘ground-truth’ information needed to put Philae’s three days of science into proper context, now that we know where that ground actually is!”

dmix 10y ago
Also, the third paragraph shows why it was relevant: > The images also provide proof of Philae’s orientation, making it clear why establishing communications was so difficult following its landing on 12 November 2014. Mostly the curiosity of the public and more importantly the scientists who worked so hard on the project only to have their lander not land properly. Otherwise the fact that Philae was lost almost immediately upon landing has been a huge story line this past year. I believe the blog assumed the readers would know this. A CNN article would typically provide back story but this is original source from ESA.
peter303 10y ago
There were a couple of mechanisms intended to hook it upright to the surface upon landing. Instead it bounced 2 or 3 times and landed tilted in some rocks. The battery was only sufficient for a few hours of pictures and other experiments. If it had landed upright and charged by solar panels it could have operated a long time, perhaps until now. The hope was that some of the solar panels were exposed it might revive after a couple of weeks. There was a hint it called the orbitor at least once, but no more data.
Sharlin 10y ago
It is scientifically useful, but mostly people are just pleasantly surprised that the proverbial needle in the haystack was actually found before the mission of Rosetta itself ends, and happy to get closure for the story of the little probe that went MIA. It's an emotional response first and foremost, just being human.
edge17 10y ago
Scientifically speaking, a successful mission is one where you've gathered all the data for analysis and can work with it long after the mission is over. It's like, if SpaceX launches a rocket and it explodes - a real failure would be if they captured no telemetry and had no idea what happened vs knowing everything that happened and being able to replay the mission after the fact. Often times the data is far more important than the outcome.

cJ0th 10y ago

Rosetta also tweeted an update ;) https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta/status/772818246059823104 https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta/status/772818246059823104

usaphp 10y ago

From Wikipedia about the comet: "One of the most outstanding discoveries of the mission so far is the detection of large amounts of free molecular oxygen (O 2) gas surrounding the comet. Current solar system models suggest the molecular oxygen should have disappeared by the time 67P was created, about 4.6 billion years ago in a violent and hot process that would have caused the oxygen to react with hydrogen and form water. Molecular oxygen has never before been detected in cometary comas. In situ measurements indicate that the O 2/H 2O ratio is isotropic in the coma and does not change systematically with heliocentric distance, suggesting that primordial O 2 was incorporated into the nucleus during the comet's formation. Detection of molecular nitrogen (N 2) in the comet suggests that its cometary grains formed in low-temperature conditions below 30 K (−243.2 °C; −405.7 °F)." [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasime...

saif_2577 10y ago

http://instagram.com/saif_2577 http://instagram.com/saif_2577

zygomega 10y ago

Does anyone know why communication is being shut down? Can they leave it on so we can get telemetry?

movedx 10y ago

At some point in the future, someone is going to fly to that comet, land, get out of their vessel and walk over to Philae and smile, give it a pat on the head, and then take it home; someone in the future is going to be lucky enough to experience that task and become a part of its history.

snowwrestler 10y ago
Think of the collectible value!
gene-h 10y ago
And it might still work. One of the neat things about Philae is that it's rated to withstand temperatures down to −60 °C. Most other space probes(and electronics in general) are not rated for such low temperatures and will experience solder joint failures if such temperatures are reached. Most space probes stay above their failure temperature with heaters, if said heaters fail, the space probe dies and won't function even if it warms back up. This happened to the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. We don't know just how low Philae can go, however, there is a good chance it's electronics won't break below the rated temperature.
- widforss 10y ago
  Worth mentioning is that objects keep their thermal energy for much longer in a vacuum since there is nothing that can conduct the heat away, so the heaters does not have to output that much energy.
junke 10y ago
Then someone will update the XKCD comic with a similar smile on their face.
fogleman 10y ago
I don't think you can really walk on the surface. There's hardly any gravity.
- 10y ago

fuhrysteve 10y ago

Why did it take so many months for the orbiter to get a photo? Compared to the rest of the achievements of this mission, it seems like this should have been relatively easy: 67P is all of like 2.5 miles wide and the orbit is at like 10 miles. You'd think that a few high res photos in a single orbit would capture nearly every inch of the entire rock.