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We're on a comet. by Dark Violet

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_17-15-00_jx7ENjy6ac.png

For the first time in history, we just landed a spacecraft on a comet.

http://sci.esa.int/science-e-media/img/c8/Rosetta_OSIRIS_NAC_comet_67P_20140803_1.png <-Comet 67p, taken by the Rosetta spacecraft
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2Qm0T-IMAErh5H.png:large <-Comet 67p, taken by the Philae lander from 3km away.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2Qrq-bIYAAeSqC.png:large <-Surface, taken by Philae, just prior to touchdown
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/landing/r_16-00-00_rmyLlIdOnH.png <- People watching the feed, just prior to touchdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktrtvCvZb28 <-Path taken by Rosetta (NSFW: Porn)
https://twitter.com/hashtag/CometLanding?src=hash <- Hashtag

http://robjte.de/xkcd-landing/ <-Visual record of the landing (Read bottom to top)

We're on a comet.

Dark Violet

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    Runewuff

    1. Great, now I read every robot as having the voice and personality of either a turret or a core. Thanks, Portal. >.> 1.a. Which makes that xkcd seem OOC. If it can't be read properly by a core, a robot wouldn't say it :p 1.b. Earth: AAAAAA!!!!! (not entirely accurate, I didn't even know, and losers like me didn't know either o_O) 1.c. (Great, I just read that as a turret) 1.d. It's really OOC for me to not be paying attention to a space-thing. O_O
    2. Porn? 2.a. In my defense, the orbital path porn tells me this thing launched when I was REALLY out of it, (the Winter of 2007 was a very dark time) it did asteroid flybys near my exams (you have not met me during exam-time, basically, anything not related to the exam is irrelivant information and discarded. "tunnel vision" doesn't begin to describe it) and this mission took so long, I kind of got something like "blah" or "boy who cried wolf" about it. 2.b. Wow, these space missions take a LOT of advance planning. 2.c. It's really OOC for humans to advance plan things like this. 2.d. Seriously, humans don't care about anything that isn't a band, celebrity or a cat picture. Also thinking longer than the next quarterly profit report, what's up with that?
    3. Whoa. The last picture of I comet I saw was a fuzzy thing, taken at like, 40 miles away. O_O 3.a. I never thought I'd see anything better, as the conventional wisdom was by the time a comet was close enough to be intercepted, it would be blasting ice in every direction and you can't get near that mess. (well, you can, you just won't live very long).
    4. OMGOMGOMG we're gonna ride this thing through a whole solar approach. What will we learn? 4.a. Will the stuff blasting out the comet throw the lander off? Pelt the orbiter with ice? Is there some crazy adventure ahead of probes shrugged off the comet, tumbling in its orbit?

    • Link

      Dark Violet

      Okay I am NOT taking the three hours out to answer all of your questions in detail, but check out the twitter feed for the Philae lander for up to date info: https://twitter.com/philae2014

      In the meantime...
      2: That orbital path is so sexy it should be censored for younger viewers.
      2a: Spacecraft launches generally aren't all that flash anymore. It's when they start doing their observations that's really impressive.
      2c: Not when it comes to space. Voyager's golden disks, New Horizon's mission to Pluto, the Juno mission, the Cassini missions... most space missions are long-term.
      2d: I disagree. Those things do get hype, true, but there's been a lot of talk about Rosetta and Curiosity recently. I can't wait for New Horizons and the James Webb o.o They're sure to fire the public's imagination.

      3: Plenty more pics out there. Have some high-res images.
      3a: That's why it took so long for the craft to get there; it's still relatively far out.

      4: Hopefully, if Philae lasts. As for what we'll learn, well, a load of stuff about the early solar system. Here's the info: http://www.sciops.esa.int/index.php?project=PSA&page=rosetta
      4a: Maybe.

      • Link

        Runewuff

        LOL you didn't have to answer them numerically. (the numbering was there for ironic purposes, order I thought of this stuff while going through your links... backwards)