How not to land on a comet...

[charangohabsburg]

Never wear the wrong shirt when trying to land on a comet...
...because it actually is not the landing, research and real scientific results themselves that matter, but rather the TV show.

I am wondering now how much money my plough plane fence made me loose since I posted its picture on the ANZLF!

[kiwigeo]

Bugger the shirt....if the guy was stark naked I couldn't give a toss...he's part of a brilliant project. They landed on the comet and have some major hurdles to overcome. Unfortunately the precarious location of the lander means they probably wont be able to deploy the drill and get some samples to analyze. The lander is only getting 1 1/2 hours of sun a day so they're running with limited power and things may come to a premature end if the batteries give out.

[Kamusur]

At least the shirt matches the colour of the inked arms.

Steve

[Nick]

Oh for f**ks sake! The guys part of a team that has just landed a spec of dust on the head of a moving pin with their eyes shut and the ranting liberals are worried about a feckin shirt offending people!? Some people need to get a life
*steps from soapbox*

Actually this whole exercise is an interesting observation of the differences between the sexes When an item comes on the news about it, I'm trying to listen because I find it fascinating and interesting, my wife manages to talk through the whole item about 'other stuff', it holds no interest for her at all.....weird

[kiwigeo]

They actually got the drill deployed and got a sample analyzed and the data back to earth. All the primary mission goals were achieved. Current plan is to try and re-orientate the craft if they can get enough power.

[kiwigeo]

Oh for f**ks sake! The guys part of a team that has just landed a spec of dust on the head of a moving pin with their eyes shut and the ranting liberals are worried about a feckin shirt offending people!? Some people need to get a life
*steps from soapbox*

People think that because you're a ****ng scientist you should be walking around in a white lab coat with dozens of pens in your top pocket and an HP 41 programmable calculator in a pouch on your belt. Science isn't supposed to be fun...

[charangohabsburg]

They actually got the drill deployed and got a sample analyzed and the data back to earth. All the primary mission goals were achieved. Current plan is to try and re-orientate the craft if they can get enough power.

Not sure where you've got that information from, but of course I hope it is a fact, which would be fantastic news! At the moment I only read this on the currently latest entry on the "Latest News" site of the ESA homepage:

The science teams are now studying their data to see if they have sampled any of this material with Philae’s drill

But there certainly do exist even later news than these, which are from Saturday, 15th November.

Here you can see ten absolutely spectacular images which satellite Rosetta made a few weeks before sending lander Philae to the comet. Te pictures were shot from a distance of less than 10 km from the comet's center and less than 8 km from its surface! During the next few months Rosetta will perform more flybys, some of them as close as within 8 km of the comet's center.

Here some explanations regarding the maybe "easiest to look at picture" Philae made after his landing.

Regarding the crappy fashion critique launched by some small-brained selfish individuals who tried to re-direct some of the fame to their own names, it seems at the moment that karma is working very quickly by reverting thrust of bad energy to the right direction, not only by serving those so-called feminists the press they actually deserve, but also by having started rolling a wave of warmhearted encouragement for Dr. Matt Taylor by social media users, up to the extreme that some who wanted to collect about 3000$ for buying Dr. Matt Taylor a nice "astronomical" watch have at the time collected about 10k$, and the campaign is scheduled to run 19 days more!

[kiwigeo]

Markus, the EA website reports that it returned data from the SD2 instrument...this is the package that drills into the comet surface and recovers a core for analysis.

"In that time, the lander returned all of its housekeeping data, as well as science data from the targeted instruments, including ROLIS, COSAC, Ptolemy, SD2 and CONSERT. This completed the measurements planned for the final block of experiments on the surface"

[charangohabsburg]

Thank you Martin. I had overlooked this detail.

[kiwigeo]

Thank you Martin. I had overlooked this detail.

How could you miss such a detail. Call yourself a space nerd!!!

[charangohabsburg]

[kiwigeo]

" Now, some of today's techie nerds are turning their attention to space.

Maybe that's why being a space nerd is cool now, as well. It is a special time we are living in for space nerds. We're sending probes out into the universe and exploring Mars, looking for life and finding evidence of water, at least. Astronauts are again being thought of as daring adventurers rather than routine work-a-day technicians. Every day brings us closer to the privatization of space exploration and the possibility of normal people traveling to space. And, scientists have just discovered a previously unknown planet in our own solar system. It's a great time to be a space nerd."