Philae landed on 67P *With Pictures* UPDATE 11/14/14

[Keudn]

11/14/14 Philae is running out of battery, but not before scientists got over 80% of the data they were hoping for. They have activated the drill as the last of the experiments, which possibly could move the lander and even tip it. If there is enough battery to send the drilling data Philae's mission will be accomplished. There is talk about using the legs to hop or adjust the solar panels, but there is a good chance this will fail. There is also a slight chance that 67P will rotate later next year and Philae may get enough light to be resurrected, but only time will tell.

 

More info here http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2014/11/updated-end-nigh-philae-comet-lander-team-mulls-last-minute-rescue

 

11/13/14 Philae is on the surface of Comet 67P (aka Churyumov–Gerasimenko), just not in the position intended. The harpoons didn't fire to anchor Philae to the surface, and the lander bounced twice before settling, one bounce may have been as high as 1km. The lander is transmitting, however the solar panels aren't receiving enough sunlight to maintain battery life and the ESA is worried it may go dead. More news here

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30034060

 

Images from Rosetta of Philae falling towards the comet, Goodbye Philae!

 

 

 

Image from Philae as it approaches the surface

 

Rosetta images of the planned landing location

 

 

Image 7.7km from surface

 

Photo from Philae looking over one of its feet

 

Another image from Philae after landing

 

Where Philae may have landed

 

For anyone wondering why we needed to land on a comet, on the BBC link at the bottom is a short video explaining what exactly we hope to learn from Comet 67P

[StingBull]

10 years of work millions of dollars and resources wasted. That's space program for ya

[SirRoderick]

A 1 km bounce? I don't care how little gravity there is, that thing was built right

[SirRoderick]

10 years of work millions of dollars and resources wasted. That's space program for ya

Let's not bring in all the MASSIVE successes I guess? The Mars rovers generally perform much better than expected. (except the ones that are deaded )

 

But really, what NASA's budget compared to another aircraft carrier you don't need?

[Oshino Shinobu]

67P? Maybe Ubisoft had something to do with it. Resolution doesn't matter after all. 

[ZetZet]

10 years of work millions of dollars and resources wasted. That's space program for ya

It's only 20% of the plan to land on the thing. We already got sooooooo much data from it.

[StingBull]

Let's not bring in all the MASSIVE successes I guess? The Mars rovers generally perform much better than expected. (except the ones that are deaded )

But really, what NASA's budget compared to another aircraft carrier you don't need?

What massive successes? No, a better question would be who's massive successes? nasa's success? Why should I give a fuck about NASA's success?

Besides who says it is a success? NASA? So NASA decides their goals and their successes but get to use my money and resources.

[SirRoderick]

What massive successes? No, a better question would be who's massive successes? nasa's success? Why should I give a fuck about NASA's success?

Besides who says it is a success? NASA? So NASA decides their goals and their successes but get to use my money and resources.

Why should you care about NASA, you ask me over the internet? Really? 

 

http://wtfnasa.com/#

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/spinoffs.html

 

Enjoy reading, ye of short sight.

[Keudn]

A 1 km bounce? I don't care how little gravity there is, that thing was built right

Honestly I think they are lucky it came back down considering the escape velocity of 67P is 0.5m/s

[SirRoderick]

Honestly I think they are lucky it came back down considering the escape velocity of 67P is 0.5m/s

That seems REALLY low for escape, but maybe it wasn't going at a proper angle for escape anyway.

 

I keep forgetting comets aint that big

[Keudn]

That seems REALLY low for escape, but maybe it wasn't going at a proper angle for escape anyway.

 

I keep forgetting comets aint that big

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philae_(spacecraft) Its possible it wasn't going at the right angle, but it was landing at 1m/s so its possible it didn't bounce up over 0.5m/s if the legs absorbed most the impact

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

That seems REALLY low for escape, but maybe it wasn't going at a proper angle for escape anyway.

 

I keep forgetting comets aint that big

When an object is at escape velocity, angle doesn't matter unless it collides with the surface.

[StingBull]

Why should you care about NASA, you ask me over the internet? Really?

http://wtfnasa.com/#

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/spinoffs.html

Enjoy reading, ye of short sight.

No. I don't buy that NASA helped invent so much excuse. All of those would have been invented sooner or later even if there was no NASA. These are scientific discoveries not art.

NASA does not justify its expense.

[Trik'Stari]

No. I don't buy that NASA helped invent so much excuse. All of those would have been invented sooner or later even if there was no NASA. These are scientific discoveries not art.

NASA does not justify its expense.

You do realize that space travel is the only hope for the continued existence of the human race right? We cannot stay on earth forever.

 

 

Perhaps we should stay here then, if people are still so stupid to think that space travel is a waste of money.

[Keudn]

No. I don't buy that NASA helped invent so much excuse. All of those would have been invented sooner or later even if there was no NASA. These are scientific discoveries not art.

NASA does not justify its expense.

Thats fine if you don't buy it, but its a fact, the discoveries made by NASA as well as the technologies developed by NASA justify it

[SirRoderick]

No. I don't buy that NASA helped invent so much excuse. All of those would have been invented sooner or later even if there was no NASA. These are scientific discoveries not art.

NASA does not justify its expense.

Willful ignorance!

 

When presented with the fact the right response is not to write them off as made up if they don't correlate to some pre-existing grudge you have.

[MiChAeLoKGB]

I have one question:

 

Why are you still talking about NASA when its ESA who made it? Yes, they colaborated with NASA on it, but majority of work and money were from ESA and EU....

And if you think finding informations about comets, the materials theyre made of and if really water on Earth is from comets are something we should just ignore. Then sorry, but youre stupid.

 

And yes, I watched the landing and todays conference. I think its a success to land on a comet 500milion km away thats traveling at speeds of 40.000km/h

[Sidiox]

No. I don't buy that NASA helped invent so much excuse. All of those would have been invented sooner or later even if there was no NASA. These are scientific discoveries not art.

NASA does not justify its expense.

Well yeah they would be invented later, after a lot of expensive research, and inventing stuff later means slowing progress which isn't good in my book. I'd say spend more on NASA and less on armies and stupid voting campaigns

[Sidiox]

I have one question:

Why are you still talking about NASA when its ESA who made it? Yes, they colaborated with NASA on it, but majority of work and money were from ESA and EU....

And if you think finding informations about comets, the materials theyre made of and if really water on Earth is from comets are something we should just ignore. Then sorry, but youre stupid.

And yes, I watched the landing and todays conference. I think its a success to land on a comet 500milion km away thats traveling at speeds of 40.000km/h

it's more of a discussion about the money spend on space exploration, be that ESA or NASA

[ZetZet]

NASA does not justify its expense.

Sure let's just give more money to the army to blow up stuff. Right?

[The_Evenger]

enlighten me, why are we doing this again?

[StingBull]

You do realize that space travel is the only hope for the continued existence of the human race right? We cannot stay on earth forever.

Perhaps we should stay here then, if people are still so stupid to think that space travel is a waste of money.

Humanity has no existence beyond earth.

[StingBull]

Double posted for some reason.

I guess I can write something about the terms I use here.

When I say NASA I mean all space exploration organizations in the world.

When I say space program I mean all of the space programs in all countries not just America.

When I say we, our resources I mean the planet as a whole. Space program wastes Earth's limited resources for little gain. More can be done on earth with the same resources that's why space program is injustifiable.

[Trik'Stari]

Double posted for some reason.

I guess I can write something about the terms I use here.

When I say NASA I mean all space exploration organizations in the world.

When I say space program I mean all of the space programs in all countries not just America.

When I say we, our resources I mean the planet as a whole. Space program wastes Earth's limited resources for little gain. More can be done on earth with the same resources that's why space program is injustifiable.

You are subjectively wrong in that statement. Humanity has an absolutely 0% chance of survival by remaining on earth. You do realize that eventually something will come along and destroy this planet (if not the solar system) and we will be unable to prevent it right? This isn't a question of if, it's a question of when. Our only hope is to colonize other planets and solar systems, regardless of the cost.

 

Black holes (can't be stopped)

Asteroids

Meteors

Gamma Ray Bursts (can't be stopped, wouldn't know about it until it hit, in which case we'd have less than a minute to live, even if it struck on the complete opposite side of the planet)

The sun going supernova (Will happen eventually)

Unavoidable, naturally occurring climate change (will happen eventually)

disease

running completely out of resources. (completely unavoidable)

CME's

 

Just to name a few of the things we face. We will eventually run out of resources due to the law of diminishing returns. The only way we could avoid running out of materials would be to develop something like the replicator from star trek, and even that would require an absolutely ridiculous amount of energy to power.

[Jerakl]

10 years of work millions of dollars and resources wasted. That's space program for ya

Nasa comes up with a lot of useful things.

http://wtfnasa.com/#