Big bang or dodgy bump?

pinno

http://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/gallery/2014/nov/11/rosettas-mission-land-comet-pictures-philae

marcusjb

Even if it fails, it is one of the most amazing missions ever undertaken. Proper sci-fi come to life stuff.

Velonutter

Absolutely amazing that they can send a Satellite into orbit 10 years ago and then shut it down and restart it as and when they need from probably millions of miles away.

I love the thought that one day we may be able to reach out to other planets and life forms?

seanoconn

Amazing stuff. Is landing the satellite end of mission or is the idea to track the comets odyssey through space?

bianchimoon

here's fingers crossed for a soft bump, it gets close to the sun next year, so all sorts of gas/debris will be coming off it as it heats up. Even if it fails, still a massive achievement for ESA to get this far

Giraffoto

Velonutter wrote:

Absolutely amazing that they can send a Satellite into orbit 10 years ago and then shut it down and restart it as and when they need from probably millions of miles away.

I love the thought that one day we may be able to reach out to other planets and life forms?

Especially when you consider that my printer gets gunked up if you leave it switched off for more than a fortnight.

bianchimoon

(APPLAUSE) awesome

laurentian

seanoconn wrote:

Amazing stuff. Is landing the satellite end of mission or is the idea to track the comets odyssey through space?

It's primarily to understand what the comet is made of. There's all sorts of scientific jiggerypokery on the lander to analyse and send back results. One thing they are testing is whether it is possible that comets brought water, or even life, to earth.

I guess the time on the comet will be finite but with an amazing mission such as this, every minute, hour or day is a bonus . . . I'd love to have the calculations explained to me as to how they achieved this. Totally incredible.

mr_goo

Bravo ESA. What a fantastic mission. To be able to land something no bigger than a dish washer on a comet 2.4 miles across and travelling at 34,000mph, gravity 100,000 less than earth and a surface like slate shale and all from a distance of 300 million miles away. A fantastic achievement.

seanoconn

It landed!

pinno

I do hope the press don't cover it with bullsh1t one liners like:

"...to find out when the universe really started..."
"...which will rewrite our knowledge of the universe..."
"...more about the big bang..."*

Notice the absence of 'the word 'theory'.

Stevo_666

Just read about this in the Metro this morning. Quite a sensible article but still a great achievement and will be very interested to see what they discover from it.

Will be interesting to see if they go for this manned mission to Mars.

thegreatdivide

I always find Voyager 1 amazing. It’s still heading out into the depths of space after its launch in 1977 and it’s expected to keep transmitting until 2025.

laurentian

Just reminded of Carl Sagan's quote showing a photo taken from Voyager showing the earth as a "Pale Blue Dot" as Voyager looked back towards us 3.7 Billion Miles away in 1990 . . .

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Wish I could write like that . . .

Velonutter

Superb piece of writing, summed up my own thoughts far better than I could ever put into words 8)

pinno

Whilst this is an amazing achievement, imagine if all the mental, physical and financial input into the years of space research, travel and moon landings etc was put into the preservation of this planet instead of the ludicrous, impractical, deluded idea that we could send people wholesale off and into space to live.
What is mankind doing when it pontificates over our 'beginning', the earth and the Universe? Sweet FA. When Carl Sagan talks in the manner in which he does, he underlines the slightly deranged nature of the protagonists involved in space exploration and theory - rather like body builders who have become self obsessed and too big for their brains to comprehend anything but their own theory's as if those theroies are substantial and rational.

thegreatdivide

pinarello001 wrote:

Whilst this is an amazing achievement, imagine if all the mental, physical and financial input into the years of space research, travel and moon landings etc was put into the preservation of this planet instead of the ludicrous, impractical, deluded idea that we could send people wholesale off and into space to live.
What is mankind doing when it pontificates over our 'beginning', the earth and the Universe? Sweet FA. When Carl Sagan talks in the manner in which he does, he underlines the slightly deranged nature of the protagonists involved in space exploration and theory - rather like body builders who have become self obsessed and too big for their brains to comprehend anything but their own theory's as if those theroies are substantial and rational.

The only thing that will preserve this planet is the removal of mankind.

Velonutter

Yep, I have had this very same thought for many years.

bianchimoon

pinarello001 wrote:

Whilst this is an amazing achievement, imagine if all the mental, physical and financial input into the years of space research, travel and moon landings etc was put into the preservation of this planet instead of the ludicrous, impractical, deluded idea that we could send people wholesale off and into space to live.
What is mankind doing when it pontificates over our 'beginning', the earth and the Universe? Sweet FA. When Carl Sagan talks in the manner in which he does, he underlines the slightly deranged nature of the protagonists involved in space exploration and theory - rather like body builders who have become self obsessed and too big for their brains to comprehend anything but their own theory's as if those theroies are substantial and rational.

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

laurentian

pinarello001 wrote:

Whilst this is an amazing achievement, imagine if all the mental, physical and financial input into the years of space research, travel and moon landings etc was put into the preservation of this planet instead of the ludicrous, impractical, deluded idea that we could send people wholesale off and into space to live.
What is mankind doing when it pontificates over our 'beginning', the earth and the Universe? Sweet FA. When Carl Sagan talks in the manner in which he does, he underlines the slightly deranged nature of the protagonists involved in space exploration and theory - rather like body builders who have become self obsessed and too big for their brains to comprehend anything but their own theory's as if those theroies are substantial and rational.

Surely it's only through exploration that we know " . . . the ludicrous, impractical, deluded idea that we could send people wholesale off and into space to live . . ." at least for the time being.

I think it's pretty clear that Mr Sagan is on the same page as you in terms of " . . . mental, physical and financial input" with regard to ". . . the preservation of this planet . . ." That is the whole tenet of the quote.

veronese68

bianchimoon wrote:

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

Have you seen Interstellar?

bianchimoon

Veronese68 wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

Have you seen Interstellar?

Nope, but just read the plot on wiki... sounds a bit depressing

veronese68

bianchimoon wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

Have you seen Interstellar?

Nope, but just read the plot on wiki... sounds a bit depressing

It is in places, very well done though. People killing the earth doesn't seem that far fetched though.

mr_goo

bianchimoon wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Whilst this is an amazing achievement, imagine if all the mental, physical and financial input into the years of space research, travel and moon landings etc was put into the preservation of this planet instead of the ludicrous, impractical, deluded idea that we could send people wholesale off and into space to live.
What is mankind doing when it pontificates over our 'beginning', the earth and the Universe? Sweet FA. When Carl Sagan talks in the manner in which he does, he underlines the slightly deranged nature of the protagonists involved in space exploration and theory - rather like body builders who have become self obsessed and too big for their brains to comprehend anything but their own theory's as if those theroies are substantial and rational.

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

I think that what we are doing as a species is laying the foundations of exploration and endeavour in outer space for the future generations. So that when this planet's time is up they may have the ability to migrate across the cosmos to resettle.

mr_goo

Veronese68 wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

Have you seen Interstellar?

Yes. Thoroughly enjoyed it myself. I am aware of all the little plot holes etc etc. If you applied 100% accuracy and logic to any film, then there would be no film.
If you go, just enjoy it for what it is, perhaps some subtitles for when Matthew Mcthingajig drawls away in his southern accent and maybe some ear defenders are useful as it was flippin loud. I thought the music score by Hans Zimmer was excellent.

veronese68

Mr Goo wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

Have you seen Interstellar?

Yes. Thoroughly enjoyed it myself. I am aware of all the little plot holes etc etc. If you applied 100% accuracy and logic to any film, then there would be no film.
If you go, just enjoy it for what it is, perhaps some subtitles for when Matthew Mcthingajig drawls away in his southern accent and maybe some ear defenders are useful as it was flippin loud. I thought the music score by Hans Zimmer was excellent.

Agree with all of the above. I would add that it's best not to have too much to drink beforehand, it's quite long.

bianchimoon

Mr Goo wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

pinarello001 wrote:

Whilst this is an amazing achievement, imagine if all the mental, physical and financial input into the years of space research, travel and moon landings etc was put into the preservation of this planet instead of the ludicrous, impractical, deluded idea that we could send people wholesale off and into space to live.
What is mankind doing when it pontificates over our 'beginning', the earth and the Universe? Sweet FA. When Carl Sagan talks in the manner in which he does, he underlines the slightly deranged nature of the protagonists involved in space exploration and theory - rather like body builders who have become self obsessed and too big for their brains to comprehend anything but their own theory's as if those theroies are substantial and rational.

ahh, but this planet has a finite lifetime, so nothing like planning early to leave eh

I think that what we are doing as a species is laying the foundations of exploration and endeavour in outer space for the future generations. So that when this planet's time is up they may have the ability to migrate across the cosmos to resettle.

I think so, and as a species we learn so much more by pushing these boundaries

earth

Mr Goo wrote:

Bravo ESA. What a fantastic mission. To be able to land something no bigger than a dish washer on a comet 2.4 miles across and travelling at 34,000mph, gravity 100,000 less than earth and a surface like slate shale and all from a distance of 300 million miles away. A fantastic achievement.

And then there was the UK who couldn't even land a probe on Mars.

orraloon

Veronese68 wrote:

I would add that it's best not to have too much to drink beforehand.

InterStella. Reassuringly expensive.