During the afternoon of Wednesday, was completed successfully Landing (more properly a acometagem if we are to be faithful to the language) probe File in comet 67P / Churiumov-Gerasimenko. For the first time a human device comes into contact with a comet, promising to bring new information about these celestial bodies, a sort of history book about the creation of our solar system.
Today was until now the high point of a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) which began in the 90s and thought that was put into effect in 2004. The mission objective Rosetta was connected with acometagem and consequent study of a comet, called “bums space” for its path around the sun.
Satellite Rosetta left Earth on March 2, 2004, and finally, after 10 years, found “his” comet. . The middle came to be in hibernation while waiting for the right time to rendezvous with 67P
The comet 67P, identified in 1969 by Klim Churiumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko Observatory in Alma-Ata in the former USSR (now Kazakhstan), traverses an elliptical orbit every 6.44 years. The orbit of Jupiter begins there and then reaches a place between Earth and Mars, where, due to the closer proximity of the Sun, produces traditional hair comets by rising temperatures and evaporation of the ice core.
It was there, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter about 500 million km from Earth, the Rosetta for the first noticed Since the 67P in August this year. Has since taken several photographs of the comet, in order to ascertain their actual dimensions (about 3.5 km by 5 km lengthwise) and features and choose the best location for the probe acometagem File . The collected data, however, were not very encouraging: Rosetta found that the comet, instead of a traditional oval shape resembled more a duck, with a larger and a smaller portion. This raised problems as decreased potential sites acometagem probe
Eventually the site was chosen:. An area of less than 2.6 km2, named Agilkia, located in the small head of the comet, we can see in the picture below
Photos Comet 67P captured by Rosetta
View of Comet 67P from the File installed in the probe chamber, captured during descent
Today’s mission, File acometar the probe, it was all but easy. The odds of success were not spectacularly high which is not surprising if we take into account all the determinants of the process. At 7 am from Portugal, the Rosetta probe launched its File, 20 km away from the 67P that moved to 66120 km / h. The small object just 100 kg made its descent from about 7pm without any propulsion or command to reach successfully the supefície the comet, creating natural joy in the control of ESA percent.
As the severity of the comet is very low (one million times smaller than Earth’s) was necessary to issue harpoons to anchor the File to 67P. And this is where the process went wrong, and ESA announced in the afternoon that had not fired harpoons. However the latest information realize that the File is securely fastened to 67p, which will study in detail in the coming months.
Another moment of great success in the chapter space exploration and more an important step in the understanding of our own solar system. Created while our planetary system, comets are small time capsules virtually imutadas whose material is inside the remnants of our creation as a planet.
It is precisely this desire to understand the past based the results of this, which led to the baptism of the curious elements of the mission. The mission was named in honor of the famous Rosetta Rosetta Stone, discovered in the River Nile by Napoleon’s military and, due to its bilingual text in Egyptian and Ancient Greek, enabled the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphics and major advances in the understanding of this civilization. Already the File was named after the island in the Nile where an obelisk was found that deepened this study. The obelisk was later transferred to the island of Agilkia, whence comes the name for the site acometagem
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