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Comet landing, first ever, today at 8AM!


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http://rosetta.esa.int/ - Live stream from ESA

Rosetta's comet sings a mysterious 'song'

The Rosetta mission has detected a mysterious signal coming from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
The mission has five instruments in the Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) that measure the plasma environment surrounding the comet.
Plasma is a charged gas and the RPC is tasked with understanding variations in the comet's activity, how 67P's jets of vapour and dust interacts with the solar wind and the dynamic structure of the comet's nucleus and coma.
But when recording signals in the 40-50 millihertz frequency range, the RPC scientists stumbled on a surprise — the comet was singing, they report.
Through some kind of interaction in the comet's environment, 67P's weak magnetic field seems to be oscillating at low frequencies. In an effort to better understand this unique 'song', mission scientists have increased the frequency 10,000 times to make it audible to the human ear.
First detected in August as Rosetta approached the comet from 100 kilometres, this magnetic oscillation has continued.
Rosetta scientists speculate that the oscillations may be driven by the ionisation of neutral particles from the comet's jets.
As they are released into space, they collide with high-energy particles from interplanetary space and become ionised. Because it is electrically charged, the plasma then interacts with the cometary magnetic field, causing oscillations. But to draw any conclusions about this, further work is needed.
(There's a SoundCloud insert here.)
"This is exciting because it is completely new to us," says Karl-Heinz Glaßmeier, head of Space Physics and Space Sensorics at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany.
"We did not expect this and we are still working to understand the physics of what is happening."
Rosetta is currently lining up to deploy its robotic Philae lander to the comet at 20.00 AEDT.
During landing manoeuvers, the RPC is expected to help tracking Philae's descent to the comet's surface. The time between separation and landing is expected to take around seven hours.
It takes 28 minutes and 20 seconds for signals to travel at the speed of light from Rosetta to mission control in Germany.
Someone should totally sample this sound.
Some cool stuff.
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Even though I totally understand the concept, it's always hard for me not to assume that a comet is not necessarily travelling in the opposite direction of it's tail. It just seems counter intuitive to think that it's just as likely to be moving in the same direction, or at right angles to it's tail. :unsure:

Also, judging by the comet's name, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it was discovered by Russians.... ^_^

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It's a good day to be a human, which lately has been a hard one to say convincingly.

But sadly this momentous event is being over shadowed by Kim Kardashians ass in some magazine right now labeled "break the internet"

One of the single most important dates in space exploration being hijacked by some vapid cretins posterior...

Frigging tragic.

That being said, I cannot wait for them to start deciphering the data from this, the amount of intricacies involved in just getting there were astronomical (no pun intended) from circling the earth 5 times to sling shotting around another planet to successfully dodging the debris trail to land and now drill.

Amazing times

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It's a good day to be a human, which lately has been a hard one to say convincingly.

But sadly this momentous event is being over shadowed by Kim Kardashians ass in some magazine right now labeled "break the internet"

One of the single most important dates in space exploration being hijacked by some vapid cretins posterior...

Frigging tragic.

That being said, I cannot wait for them to start deciphering the data from this, the amount of intricacies involved in just getting there were astronomical (no pun intended) from circling the earth 5 times to sling shotting around another planet to successfully dodging the debris trail to land and now drill.

Amazing times

Haha, you should have put "no pun intended" up there instead. :P Why do people give these "celebrities" attention anyways? If everyone just ignores them, they will go away.

In all seriousness though, very cool for science! (the comet thing)

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It's a good day to be a human, which lately has been a hard one to say convincingly.

But sadly this momentous event is being over shadowed by Kim Kardashians ass in some magazine right now labeled "break the internet"

One of the single most important dates in space exploration being hijacked by some vapid cretins posterior...

Frigging tragic.

That being said, I cannot wait for them to start deciphering the data from this, the amount of intricacies involved in just getting there were astronomical (no pun intended) from circling the earth 5 times to sling shotting around another planet to successfully dodging the debris trail to land and now drill.

Amazing times

But what a picture. That thing could block out the sun...in a good way ::D

In all seriousness, I have been listening to the sound of the magnetic field frequency on repeat for the last two hours. This is the coolest thing that I have seen in many many years, possibly my entire life.

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Wait what about KK's ass?

Srsly tho that's amazing. How they managed to land on such a fast moving object is beyond me.

once you are moving about the same pace it's not that hard. Getting the timing down so they can end up close to eachother after all that slingshotting is what impresses me. the actual landing part doesn't seem that hard.

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that kardassian picture not only did not break the internet, it's only mildly amusing and completely unappealing.

I guess it's all in the preference. Nasa probably would have had an easier time landing on her butt than the comet though...

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