Tag: Comet
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Rosetta imagery shows Philae at first landing site
Images recorded by Rosetta’s navigation camera appear to show the lander, its shadow and the dust cloud kicked up by its first touchdown. Image: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM; pre-processed by Mikel Canania The first image in the sequence was taken on at 15:30 GMT on 12 November, just before the lander’s first touchdown; the second image was taken at 15:35…
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Comet lander’s batteries near exhaustion
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS “SPACE PLACE” & USED WITH PERMISSION Comet from 40 meters. Credit: Copyright ESA/Rosetta/Philae/ROLIS/DLR Trapped in rough, forbidding terrain with its solar panels draped in shadow, the Philae comet lander raced the clock Friday to carry out high-priority science operations, including an attempt to drill into the surface of the…
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Lander manager says Philae is doing well but battery life is low
The lander project manager Stephan Ulamec says tremendous science has been collected during Philae’s short time on the surface but battery life is now limited and it is unlikely to last much longer.
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Mission scientist reacts to historic first images from the surface of a comet
Rosetta mission scientist Matt Taylor says the science team is jubilant after the Philae lander captured the historic, first close up images of the surface of a comet and began returning data from its science instruments.
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Rosetta camera captures Philae’s descent to the comet
Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA. Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera witnessed Philae’s descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November. This animated gif comprises images captured between 10:24 and 14:24 GMT (onboard spacecraft time). More images showing Philae closer to the surface are still to be downloaded. Separation occurred onboard the spacecraft at…
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Comet’s brush with Mars more dramatic than expected
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS “SPACE PLACE” & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist’s concept of Comet Siding Spring approaching Mars, shown with NASA’s orbiters preparing to make science observations of this unique encounter. Credit: NASA/JPL Comet Siding Spring’s close flyby of Mars last month dumped several tons of primordial dust into the thin martian atmosphere, likely creating a…
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Mars spacecraft safe after fortuitous comet encounter
The HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took these images of comet Siding Spring, the first resolved images of a long-period comet’s nucleus. HiRISE took the pictures nine minutes apart at a range of 138,000 kilometers (86,000 miles) from the comet, yielding a scale of about 138 meters (150 yards) per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University…
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Comet’s flyby of Mars a boon for scientists
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS “SPACE PLACE” & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist’s concept of comet Siding Spring buzzing Mars. Credit: NASA The red planet’s brush with Comet Siding Spring Sunday was a close encounter of the best kind for science, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study a pristine remnant of the solar system’s birth 4.6 billion years ago…
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Fleet of Mars probes set to observe comet flyby
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS “SPACE PLACE” & USED WITH PERMISSION An artist’s concept of Comet Siding Spring (2013 A1) and Mars. Closest approach to Mars is on Oct. 19, 2014. Credit: NASA An international fleet of five Mars orbiters and two rovers will have ringside seats when a mountain-size comet streaks by on Oct. 19, passing…
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Rosetta completes amazing journey to Comet 67P
The European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft Rosetta – and her robotic lander companion Philae – have completed an amazing 10 year journey to arrive in orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta is the first mission designed to orbit and land on a comet, with the potential to gain further understanding on how life started on Earth. Rosetta: The…