Re "I had dinner tonight with a member of the Rosetta mission.":
Male or female? I hope you dressed appropriately - they are easily moved to tears those scientists. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : I had dinner tonight with a member of the Rosetta mission. The Philae lander is just sleeping, not dead. In Monty Python terms, it is not an ex-lander. It's merely "pinin' for the fjords..." :-) From: "anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2014 1:54 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Philae has detected organic molecules Yes, I agree. Quite an accomplishment. This was a shorter mission, but extremely exacting. The Cassini mission to Saturn, another undertaking of similar difficulty, took 30 years from conception to getting the spacecraft to Saturn, and they also landed a package on Saturn's moon Titan, taking images on the way down. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn for 10 years, so from drawing board to today, the mission has taken 40 years out of some people's lives. Think of it you are a 20-year engineer at the start of the mission, and now you are 60! Decent into Titan's Atmosphere (Actual NASA video) http://youtu.be/oAn73CQm65Q http://youtu.be/oAn73CQm65Q Decent into Titan's Atmosphere (Actual NASA ... http://youtu.be/oAn73CQm65Q This short animation is made up from a sequence of images taken by the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) instrument on board ESA's Huygens p... View on youtu.be http://youtu.be/oAn73CQm65Q Preview by Yahoo Using that information it is possible to extrapolate a more visually appealing version of the data that may look more like it actually would to the human eyes. The movie below runs a speeded up version of the descent, approximately 2 minutes go by every second. The rocks on the ground at the end are made of water ice. The temperature on Titan's surface is about -180 degrees C., so rocks of ice are very hard. Huygens: Titan Descent Movie (2005.01.14) http://youtu.be/HtYDPj6eFLc http://youtu.be/HtYDPj6eFLc Huygens: Titan Descent Movie (2005.01.14) http://youtu.be/HtYDPj6eFLc This movie was built thanks to the data collected by ESA's Huygens Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on 14 January 2005, during the 147-minutes ... View on youtu.be http://youtu.be/HtYDPj6eFLc Preview by Yahoo ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Xeno, The scientists are happy that they have accomplished a very intricate technological feat by keeping the mission on course for 10 years and then landing a probe on the comet itself. It would been a great bonus if they could keep the lander alive for a few months to make more scientific observations. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : They might have a better idea of the possibility if they can locate where it is. So far they have discovered it was photographed from Rosetta about 15 minutes after it bounced the first time, but have not yet located any additional images after that time. Rosetta imaged Philae during its descent -- and after its bounce | The Planetary Society http://planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/11171502-rosetta-imaged-philae-during.html http://planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/11171502-rosetta-imaged-philae-during.html Rosetta imaged Philae during its descent -- and after it... http://planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/11171502-rosetta-imaged-philae-during.html This morning ESA released a set of images of the Philae lander taken by the Rosetta orbiter during -- and after -- the lander's first touchdown. The images co... View on planetary.org http://planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/11171502-rosetta-imaged-philae-during.html Preview by Yahoo ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : ESA scientists have stated that Philae may wake up again, when its batteries are recharged by the sun, to do more work in the near future. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote : The Philae lander has detected organic molecules on the surface of its comet, scientists have confirmed. The compounds were picked up by a German-built instrument designed to "sniff" the comet's thin atmosphere. OK - so organic molecules aren't life as we know it, but they were found on a measly comet. Pity we've lost the phone connection - just when the conversation was getting interesting.
