Rosetta Mission

[eyetea]

I'll be checking the news around 4pm! Fingers crossed it goes to plan..

 

BBC News - Rosetta mission: 'Go' is given for comet landing

[caffrey]

Watching this too, did you hear the sound the comet makes ? https://soundcloud.com/esaops/a-singing-comet

[eyetea]

Hadn't seen (heard!) that!

[GREED]

Same here genuinely exciting stuff!

[6Foot2]

Lander Philae successfully separated from Rosetta.

 

Philae is expected to make comet fall in around seven hours from now.

 

Live feed to mission control:

 

Link: Rosetta | rendezvous with a comet

[sonofsanta]

I love the fact that a space mission is the top headline on the news at the moment. Space! Space is exciting! Why isn't everyone more excited about it all the time!

[MYK-IT]

An exciting and historical day! Been following the live streams from ESA etc.

 

Has been a space themed period (for me) recently; met Mark Thompson (BBC StarGazing Live etc) during a space talk the other week and visited Jodrell Bank last weekend too! (as well as watching the ISS)

 

Edited November 12, 2014 by MYK-IT

[GREED]

I love the fact that a space mission is the top headline on the news at the moment. Space! Space is exciting! Why isn't everyone more excited about it all the time!

 

Make the most of it because tomorrow it will be mid listing, the weekend it will disappear. To be replaced by NHS/Prisons/Commons/Plebgate scandal or some other crap that should have been prevented but wasn't. Rather sick of the news this year, this is a shining light!

[LeMarchand]

I love the fact that a space mission is the top headline on the news at the moment. Space! Space is exciting! Why isn't everyone more excited about it all the time!

 

Meh. Who cares about that scifi rubbish when there's Eastenders, Strictly and Celebrity, innit?

 

[witch]

It is really exciting - Dorset has a connection with Philae as we have the Philae obelisk at Kingston Lacy House.

 

As you say - real news

[unixman_again]

I regularly watch the Ariane 5 and Soyuz launches on ARIANESPACE.TV The next launch will be the third flight of Vega, which was scheduled for the 18th of this month but it appears to be delayed.

[Garacesh]

I have the live feed on my second screen.

 

Bunch o' dudes staring thoughtfully at screens right now. The cameraman is trying to move around and make it look interesting. Ooh, that guy just opened a book.. Nope, back to screens..

 

Presumably things will get a bit more 'exciting' around 2:30-3:00

 

Edit: I see a lot of people cheering now and clapping.. What just happened? lol

Edited November 12, 2014 by Garacesh

[caffrey]

"it's still alive"

[6Foot2]

Link: xkcd 1446 [Philae landing frame by frame]

 

Note: image will update automatically if you are looking at the most recent image. Updates can be delayed up to 30 secs

 

Frame at the time of posting:

 

http://xkcd1446.org/img/r_13-00-00_mSoRydu3Ia.png

 

[Frame 86]

[Garacesh]

Good thing that's mirrored.. XKCD's main site is blocked here.

[6Foot2]

Twitter 'exchanges' between Rosetta, Philae and Ground Control a bit twee?

 

http://i.snag.gy/WNBxs.jpg

http://i.snag.gy/MN8jG.jpg

[Arreks]

Twitter 'exchanges' between Rosetta, Philae and Ground Control a bit twee?

 

http://i.snag.gy/WNBxs.jpg

http://i.snag.gy/MN8jG.jpg

 

That made me cringe a bit..

[Norphy]

Going through that XKCD feed has made me sing this to myself all afternoon:

 

[JJonas]

first snapshot

 

[JJonas]

 

Edited November 12, 2014 by JJonas

[sonofsanta]

So, time to confuse myself and mess with my head: we'll find out if Philae has landed at 16:00 GMT. We're on a half-hour radio lag, so you could say it's landed now. But what does now mean? If there's no way of knowing due to the limits of the speed of light, does now have an absolute meaning? What is "the present moment" in a relativistic Universe? What is "the present moment" at all - is there an indivisible unit of time, a Planck moment, or are we forever living in the past, evaluating what has just happened? How do we know we're not destroyed and recreated at every moment, complete with memories of a supposed existence that has led, causally, to this moment?

 

In other news, the Philae lander uses only 8W. Cool!

[Garacesh]

Gave me a good chuckle

 

 

Oh my, everyone on the live feed looks a little on the terrified side, don't they?

 

Losing contact with the probe at touchdown time.. Does not bode well..

[LeMarchand]

Oh my, everyone on the live feed looks a little on the terrified side, don't they?

 

Losing contact with the probe at touchdown time.. Does not bode well..

 

Pasadena Control: It's looking good. It's going good. We're getting great pictures here at NASA Control, Pasadena. The landing-craft touched down on Mars 28 kilometers from the aim-point. We're looking at a remarkable landscape, littered with different kinds of rocks - red, purple... How 'bout that, Bermuda?

Bermuda Control: Fantastic! Look at the dune-field.

Pasadena Control: Hey, wait. I'm getting a no-go signal. Now I'm losing one of the craft. Hey, Bermuda, you getting it?

Bermuda Control: No, I lost contact. There's a lot of dust blowing up there.

Pasadena Control: Now I've lost the second craft. We got problems.

Bermuda Control: All contact lost, Pasadena. Maybe the antenna's...

Pasadena Control: What's that flare? See it? A green flare, coming from Mars, kind of a green mist behind it. It's getting closer. You see it, Bermuda? Come in, Bermuda! Houston, come in! What's going on? Tracking station 43, Canberra, come in, Canberra! Tracking station 63, can you hear me, Madrid? Can anybody hear me? Come in, come in...

[jinnantonnixx]

So, time to confuse myself and mess with my head: we'll find out if Philae has landed at 16:00 GMT. We're on a half-hour radio lag, so you could say it's landed now. But what does now mean? If there's no way of knowing due to the limits of the speed of light, does now have an absolute meaning? What is "the present moment" in a relativistic Universe? What is "the present moment" at all - is there an indivisible unit of time, a Planck moment, or are we forever living in the past, evaluating what has just happened? How do we know we're not destroyed and recreated at every moment, complete with memories of a supposed existence that has led, causally, to this moment?

 

In other news, the Philae lander uses only 8W. Cool!

@sonofsanta - I know you love this stuff, so no - there is no such thing as a 'now' that permeates through space. It's all relative.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special_Relativity/Simultaneity%2C_time_dilation_and_length_contraction#The_Andromeda_Paradox

 

This clock is so accurate it runs at a different rate depending on whether it's on the floor or on the wall, so there's no such thing as a 'now' even within the same room.

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/03/361069820/new-clock-may-end-time-as-we-know-it

 

Introducing the World’s Most Precise Clock - IEEE Spectrum

 

I've got form for derailing threads, so veering wildly back on topic, an amazing achievement, even if it fails from this point on.

Edited November 12, 2014 by jinnantonnixx

[LiamH]

So, time to confuse myself and mess with my head: we'll find out if Philae has landed at 16:00 GMT. We're on a half-hour radio lag, so you could say it's landed now. But what does now mean? If there's no way of knowing due to the limits of the speed of light, does now have an absolute meaning? What is "the present moment" in a relativistic Universe? What is "the present moment" at all - is there an indivisible unit of time, a Planck moment, or are we forever living in the past, evaluating what has just happened? How do we know we're not destroyed and recreated at every moment, complete with memories of a supposed existence that has led, causally, to this moment?

 

In other news, the Philae lander uses only 8W. Cool!

 

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking answers a couple of those!

 

Edit:

 

Just had a reply on my facebook status hoping that Philae has a good touchdown "Eagles suck" *facepalm* (they thought i meant the Philadelphia Eagles american football team, silly Americans)

Edited November 12, 2014 by LiamH