Rosetta Hunts For Comet Touch Down Site For Philae Lander

astroengine writes Attached to the European Space Agency's comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta, the Philae lander opened one of its robotic eyes when the mission was orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko at a distance of only 50 kilometers (31 miles) on Sunday. With two high-contrast exposures, the lander captured one of Rosetta's solar panels in the foreground with the comet behind. ESA says the choice of landing sites will be narrowed down from five to two on Monday -- a primary target and a backup -- before a final decision is made in October.

Odd name

[Tablizer]

Is it just me, or does the lander name sound a bit, uhhh, personal?

Re:Odd name

[i kan reed]

The lander is named after Philae Island in the Nile, where an obelisk was found that was used along with the Rosetta Stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

So no. Instead, it's a "clever" tie-in to the overall mission name.

Re:

[TheRealSteveDallas]

It would have been funnier if they called it the Philae Landerer

Re:

[ShaunC]

Well they do say that the "Philae lander opened one of its robotic eyes," so the inference of a one-eyed something or other is there, probably on purpose.

It's a fight between flight and science operations

[Anonymous Coward]

The lander has an expected design lifetime somewhere around 72 hours or so. Obviously they want to keep it alive for much longer than that, so that means putting it in a spot that gets a good balance between solar exposure and cooling efficiency. Unfortunately for the scientists, the flattest and most sun-exposed areas on "Cherry Garry" are also some of the most boring scientifically, relatively speaking.

Re:It's a fight between flight and science operati

[manu0601]

Indeed they cannot afford a rover. IIRC the gravity is so low that moving on the surface at 0.5 cm/s is enough to escape the comet.

Effing JS

[Mateorabi]

Of the thirty some domains trying to execute javascript from that page, anyone have the secret combination to temporarily let through noscript so the right-arrow "next image" button works? Just discovery.com and their cdn is not sufficient.

Re:

[ldobehardcore]

Don't even try. Getting syphilis isn't worth the fun of fucking the whore.

Re:

[able1234au]

try this... http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2... [esa.int]

Just do it

[AndyKron]

Just slam it in there and give it a twist.

Very exciting!

[Deagol]

Anyone else have Clarke's 2069 in the back of their minds when they hear updates about this mission? I'm sure he wasn't the only SF writer to make comet-landing a plot point, but his is the only one in my reading history.

Exciting times!

And Rosetta asks ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... "Does that angle make me look fat?"