Rosetta and Philae's Findings

[gaa_ian]

It is great to see some images and the preliminary science observations from the surface of the comet, with a geological summary from ESA (http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/11/Welcome_to_a_comet).
Basically the lander is looking at the desiccated "Mud" on the comets surface !

[pluto]

I look forward to hearing what the various experiments have to say about the geology of the comet but I don't think they've released much just yet.

That "Geological Summary" is just a comment under the ESA picture by somebody interpreting the heavily compressed images that have been released. The raw images won't be released until the science teams have had a chance to work through all the data they've got and they've published their results.

I thought that the bright stuff in that image looked just like ice but the image has so many compression artifacts that those 'ice' features could literally just be due to the compression.

P.S. the MUPUS team did release a short statement about some of the physical properties which I'll paste here:

[gaa_ian]

Thanks Hugh, good pick up.
That is a much better insight into what they have actually found ! Pretty much exactly the opposite of what turns out to be commentary on the image alone !

[pluto]

I've seen mention that they think the first landing site was much softer and that the final landing site is surprisingly hard. A lot of the science instruments turned on as soon as the lander thought it had landed the first time so they should have some measurements from 3 sites on the comet instead of one!

Also Philae was caught just after the first bounce by Rosetta's NAVCAM:
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/16/philae_spotted_after_first_landing/

[Ironbird]

01
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_02_zps6c0f757c.jpg

02
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_05_02_zps6b4cfa00.jpg

03
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_06_03_zpsc3f01257.jpg
Face on 67/P : )

04
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_07_03_zps10e251bc.jpg

05
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_08_02_zpsaba40ffb.jpg

06
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_08_04_zps7dde73ab.jpg

07
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_11_03_zps754fb4fa.jpg

08
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_10_02_zps71f19d58.jpg

09
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y75/Rusty_Pennies/Rosetta/Philae_14_02_zps2a987363.jpg

[pluto]

First bounce from OSIRIS:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/11/OSIRIS_spots_Philae_drifting_across _the_comet

[algwat]

ESA/ROSETTA released a series of navcam images for the public to play with.
At my blog is an anim of the rotating comet showing coma activity. Made with imageJ...

http://cometal-comets.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/philaes-ride.html

kind regards, Alan

[Ric]

That's a cool little animation Alan, well done. :thumbsup:

[pluto]

Just though I'd share this interesting new post about the search for Philae:
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/11/the-quest-to-find-philae-2/


Also for those that may not have been following there are some amazing close-up images to peruse in the archive, like these:
http://imagearchives.esac.esa.int/index.php?/category/64

And look at this :eyepop:
http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2015/05/comet_closeup_19_october_2014_navca m/15410118-1-eng-GB/Comet_closeup_19_October_2014_NavCa m.jpg

[julianh72]

They might have a bit more luck finding Philae, now that it's woken up!
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/14/rosettas-lander-philae-wakes-up-from-hibernation/

[pluto]

Just heard, so exciting!
Can't wait to see some new stuff from it :D

[gaa_ian]

It is great to hear this little lander back in the mainstream news for all the right reasons :-)