Thursday 13 November 2014

Working in Montréal today --67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

I will be working in Montréal today.

Earth, the moon, Mars, Venus, Titan moon of Saturn, two asteroids, comet Tempel-1 and now.... comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, all places where human made crafts have landed.

Yesterday the Philae lander descended from its mothership, Rosetta, after the pair spend the last 10 years making the 6.4 billion km trip.  Like all missions there is always a glitch somewhere and for Philae, the 100 kg lander, it is just precariously sitting on the surface of the 3 x 5 km comet as its landing anchor harpoons failed to deploy.  This may make the core sample drilling especially challenging.

Yay for science and congratulations to the European Space Agency!

Have a good day!

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