Rosetta Probe

[jingars]

It is well over 316 million miles away, so yes, radio takes that long to travel to Earth.

[scorp]

Mr Trophy said:

For the non space like people (me)

Is it that far away it takes 28 minutes to confirm what's happened?

Yeah. The Sun is 8mins away for reference.

[scubadude]

Mr Trophy said:

For the non space like people (me)

Is it that far away it takes 28 minutes to confirm what's happened?

Yup, 300million-ish miles.

For comparison a signal from Voyager 9billion miles away takes around 14hours, light from the sun (same-ish speed as radio) takes 8minutes to reach earth, its the same as the slight delay when you talk on a satellite phone.

Just like the Mars landings, we don't get to know what happened for a good long time after it happened "live", thats why the heavy automation, we can't control things in real time more than a short distance from Earth.

[Mr Trophy]

scubadude said:

Yup, 300million-ish miles.

For comparison a signal from Voyager 9billion miles away takes around 14hours, light from the sun (same-ish speed as radio) takes 8minutes to reach earth, its the same as the slight delay when you talk on a satellite phone.

Just like the Mars landings, we don't get to know what happened for a good long time after it happened "live", thats why the heavy automation, we can't control things in real time more than a short distance from Earth.

Thanks, that's really interesting!

[Pesty]

Can't see any pics yet of the seperation or approach on that link. Are they around or coming later.

[thatdude]

Seperation confirmed!

https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta

also keep an eye on

https://twitter.com/Philae2014

and for a live feed

http://rosetta.esa.int/

What a day to be alive and witness to this!

[MrCarPark]

Pesty said:

Can't see any pics yet of the seperation or approach on that link. Are they around or coming later.

I think it's a couple of hours before they get an image of the orbiter from the lander. Everything is in super slo-mo today.

[scubadude]

MrCarPark said:

I think it's a couple of hours before they get an image of the orbiter from the lander. Everything is in super slo-mo today.

Bl**dy solar system internet is always slow- Mars Rovers are playing Halo and Messenger is downloading porn as usual, I bet Kepler is posting to Flickr (again) and the ISS crew are on Facetime.

[durbster]

Next updates will be around midday GMT when they try to re-establish a connection with Philae and Rosetta. I think they're expecting the first images from the separation then too.

I've been following this for months and can't concentrate on my work today

[thatdude]

durbster said:

I've been following this for months and can't concentrate on my work today

Likewise

I have a head-cold but this is keeping my spirits high today, and serving as a bit of inspiration to perform some science (about to condense some ammonia gas for a reaction...)

[CrutyRammers]

Sounds like the active descent system has failed to come up though - it's supposed to thrust it downwards on landing to stick it to the surface. So it'll have to rely on the screws getting in and holding it down. Fingers crossed...

[durbster]

The Philae lander has just checked in during its descent. All is well but that thruster failing seems like a big concern. They're relying on the harpoons and screws to hold it on the surface now.

[Eric Mc]

I'm watching the "action" on the ESA link but they aren't really doing a very good job in letting us know what is actually happening.

They could do with a few lessons from NASA.

Phew - they are now receiving telemetry from the lander.

[SpudLink]

CrutyRammers said:

Sounds like the active descent system has failed to come up though - it's supposed to thrust it downwards on landing to stick it to the surface. So it'll have to rely on the screws getting in and holding it down. Fingers crossed...

Not been following this too closely.
Would I be right in saying that by now the lander should have secured itself using a harpoon and screws? Should we know by midday if it's worked?

[thatdude]

I can't help but feeling like the only appropriate way to behave is by marking out like I'm at a wrestling show

so

yes, yes, yes

and

this is awesome <clap clap clapclapclap>

[hidetheelephants]

This is amazing.

[FunkyNige]

SpudLink said:

Not been following this too closely.
Would I be right in saying that by now the lander should have secured itself using a harpoon and screws? Should we know by midday if it's worked?

Not quite - they released it at about 9am (Earth time), it take about 8 hours to descend so will land at about 5pm (Earth time), we should know then if it worked.
There's about 30 minute delay with the messages so it will land at 430pm and we know about 5pm.
At the moment it's sorting itself out doing bits and bobs, at about midday it sends us an update and hopefully an image of the Rosetta probe it was released from.

[scubadude]

durbster said:

The Philae lander has just checked in during its descent. All is well but that thruster failing seems like a big concern. They're relying on the harpoons and screws to hold it on the surface now.

Oh bum, I have a fear that the comet's going to be abit harder than the spears and screws can cope with alone... the lack of the thruster makes a bounce far more likely :-(

[Gandahar]

The screws and harpoons will at least damp any bounce, so even if that happened it might still be ok. The rocks are more of a threat I think.

Photo's about lunchtime I think, then landing stuff about 4pm, probably landing photo's at 5pm then.

For people working on this for 10 years it must be an incredibly exciting yet nervy day. Best of luck to them.

[thatdude]

The advent of social networking (i.e. twitter) is a real bonus to this mission. I am really enjoying following the twitter feeds (it's the first time I've really paid any attention to twitter)


I'm marking out here, I want to jump about but everyone at work will look at me like im nuts.