APOD: Spacecraft Rosetta Shows Comet has... (2014 Jul 21)

[Boomer12k]

Can't wait for the higher resolution pictures, and the landing...


Go, Rosetta, Go!!!!

:---[===] *

[BillBixby]

Another landing coming up. I hope all the engineers have there DUCKS in a row, know how many feet are in a yard and Yards to the meter. For some reason I worry when different countries with different measurement systems get together to work on a project.

[BDanielMayfield]

Harkenth Art, thou hast miss'd a few.

Just a minor clarification: The actual rotation rate is just over 12 hours rather than a "few hours". Makes a difference when you're trying to put a lander down....

Few (?), a. [OE. fewe, feawe.] Not many; small, limited, or confined in number; -- indicating a small portion of units or individuals constituing a whole; often, by ellipsis of a noun, a few people. "Are not my days few?" Job x. 20.

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act 1, Scene 3

LORD POLONIUS: Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!

• The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
  And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
  And these few precepts in thy memory
  See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
  Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
  Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
  Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
  Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
  But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
  Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
  Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
  Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
  Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
  Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
  Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
  But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
  For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
  And they in France of the best rank and station
  Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
  Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
  For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
  And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
  This above all: to thine ownself be true,
  And it must follow, as the night the day,
  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

[DavidLeodis]

Through the "tidal forces" link I learnt a new word:- spaghettification.

[Ann]

Through the "tidal forces" link I learnt a new word:- spaghettification.

Spaghettification and meat sauce?

Ann

[Beyond]

Spaghettification and meat sauce?

EWWW! That's Gruesome, Ann. In space, no one can hear you get slurped.

[Joules]

Center of mass is in the neck, between larger body and smaller head: http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov/news/surfac ... %99s_comet
Overall density of the comet is reportedly between 0.1 and 0.5 g per cubic cm, depending on how calcs are done. See Wikipedia for one value, there are several others computed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyu ... erasimenko
That low a density doesn't leave much room for large rigid bodies, yet there they are. Perhaps the unusual shape has thrown off calculations?

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Clearly - better pictures are on the way.

I'm sure more to follow.

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Another landing coming up. I hope all the engineers have there DUCKS in a row, know how many feet are in a yard and Yards to the meter. For some reason I worry when different countries with different measurement systems get together to work on a project.

The only folks with "a different measurement system"
are U.S., Liberia & Burma.

<<The United States remains the only industrialised country that has not adopted the metric system as its official system of measurement. Many sources also cite Liberia and Burma as the only other countries not to have done so.>>