Welcome to a comet

#1

Post by jbogp » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 10:39 AM UTC

Re: Welcome to a comet

#2

Post by jbogp » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 10:42 AM UTC

That's a great achievement in any case. I'm just slightly worried from the looks of this picture that Philae actually stabilized on its side.

Also the large amount of shadow in the area is worrisome for the solar panels to function properly.

Press conference with the release of a full panorama (which will hopefully not confirm the side landing) is scheduled for 1400 CET.

Re: Welcome to a comet

#3

Post by mhandley » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 10:58 AM UTC

jbogp wrote: post #2

That's a great achievement in any case. I'm just slightly worried from the looks of this picture that Philae actually stabilized on its side. Also the large amount of shadow in the area is worrisome for the solar panels to function properly. Press conference with the release of a full panorama (which will hopefully not confirm the side landing) is scheduled for 1400 CET.

The sunlight appears to be coming from behind and to the left of Philae in this picture, at a fairly low angle, so the back of it should (I hope) be reasonably illuminated at the moment.

It's definitely not clear from this picture which way is "up". It looks to me like up may be towards the top right of the picture, in which case Philae may be at a 45 degree angle. But I'm probably wrong - the full panorama should tell all.

Re: Welcome to a comet

#4

Post by jbogp » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 11:08 AM UTC

Also very interesting, if you look at the high-res picture and zoom at the bottom right, you'll notice some sort of cable on the ground/boulder.

This could be the cable from one of the harpoons that may have fired but didn't anchor themselves, or it could be a feature attached to Philae that's in the field of vision.

Re: Welcome to a comet

#5

Post by lentil_soup » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 11:10 AM UTC

Curious question, is the light in the picture all from the Sun or do they use something artificial?

Re: Welcome to a comet

#6

Post by jbogp » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 11:12 AM UTC

lentil_soup wrote: post #5

Curious question, is the light in the picture all from the Sun or do they use something artificial?

All from the sun.

Re: Welcome to a comet

#7

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 11:14 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Welcome to a comet

#8

Post by binarymax » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 11:35 AM UTC

The sheen coming from the surface where light hits is indicative of some interesting materials on that comet. Looking forward to more photos and especially analysis of the surface composition!

Re: Welcome to a comet

#9

Post by Lrigikithumer » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 11:43 AM UTC

You know I have some bad days some times, but seeing shit like this just makes me think "What a fucking time to be alive!" It's truly incredibly and is sometimes that kick in the pants I need to keep on going. We are living in a golden age of humanity right now, at no point before in human history have so many people had such an incredible quality of life and never before has man been doing such incredible feats and have the ability to reach a worldwide audience almost instantaneously. The fact that just a few hours ago a human designed space craft landed on a comet, after decades of work and I can receive the images fresh from the great minds that brought us this feat, while laying in bed dicking about on my phone, it's just pure and simply astounding.

For all our flaws I love humans and I am so excited to see what the future holds.

Back to the comet, any word on what happened to the harpoons? I heard there was a misfire or they didn't fire or something? Any idea how that's affected the landing as of yet?

Re: Welcome to a comet

#10

Post by muyuu » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 11:43 AM UTC

Does it have a colour camera? or maybe it's a bandwidth-saving decision to transmit only B&W? or because of the lighting?