A photo from open sources Land the spacecraft to the surface comets are almost as difficult as injecting bacteria. But still managed to carry out jewelry work “Rosetta” that lowered to the surface of the comet Churyumova-Gerasimenko lander “Phil”, even though that the active descent system was malfunctioning when inclusion. European scientists also congratulated on this breakthrough NASA
The Fila apparatus descended on a comet and survived the landing. He sat in strictly designated place and, of course, on that same comet, beyond which we hunted from the very beginning of the mission, “says Jean-Jacques Dordain, CEO ESA.
The landing of the device could not be considered completed until “Phil” did not establish a communication channel with the Rosetta orbital probe, on which he flew to the comet and with which he will now to communicate with the Earth.
As it turned out after establishing a connection between the two devices, “Phil” bounced at least three times from the surface of the comet due to that the harpoons could not attach it the first time. These are disturbing the news came a few hours after it became it’s clear that the robot is already on the surface Churyumova-Gerasimenko.
A photo from open sources
The primary signals transmitted by the devices of the ground station, testified that “Phil” plunged his “legs” by 4 centimeter deep into the surface of the celestial body, which allowed suggest that the comet’s upper layer is composed of soft rocks. However, it later became clear that the device is still unstable, and it is still unknown whether he can reliably attach to the comet.
Subsequent news will arrive in the afternoon on Moscow time on Thursday November 13, 2014, when established a full connection with Rosetta. The fact is that the orbiter was in the radio wave access zone at throughout the entire descent of the landing module, but when that It was already on the surface, “Rosetta” left the zone of “visibility”. Communication will be restored a little later, and besides scientists will already know about the future course of their mission.
Analysis of existing data allows us to consider another scenario: “Phil” could bounce off the surface of the comet after the first landing, soar in space for some time, after why make another landing. Contact with the comet could to be and more. In this case, mission leaders say about two hours could have elapsed between the first and second landing, and between the second and third – no more than ten minutes.
Even if the further course of the mission does not meet the plans ESA, nice to know that Rosetta and Phil have already done several significant discoveries during his work. The most interesting of these, the comet’s “song” has recently turned out to be Churyumova-Gerasimenko.
A photo from open sources
One of Rosetta’s five instruments, the Rosetta Plasma Consortium, Designed to study cometary nucleus interactions with solar wind and other cosmic phenomena discovered mysterious signal in the frequency range 40-50 millihertz.
Apparently, scientists thought some kind of interaction caused the comet’s weak magnetic field to oscillate. Executives missions decided that vibrations could be ionization of neutral particles of the tail of the comet, which occurs when they collide with high-energy particles of interplanetary space space. And since the particles of the comet tail are electrically charged, then comet plasma (ionized gas) interacts with a cometary magnetic field, resulting in fluctuations occur.
However, it is too early to draw conclusions on this subject. ESA scientists all they hope that the mission will not suffer due to the harpoon malfunction systems, and they will be able to solve the riddle of the “song” of the comet and many of it other secrets.
Time
