They landed a probe on a comet!

This is pretty remarkable--especially if you look at all the planning that went into it. Planning started 30 years ago and it was launched a decade ago. The precision needed to land something so exact so far away is mind boggling.

www.popularmechanics.com/hot-to/blog/wha...-comet-17416959

good thing it only cost 1.8 billion dollars to do this and it was not US tax dollars.

I am amazed at this story. I love science.

Just some of the imagery that's made its way back blows my mind.

Remember those problems in school that went like, "A train leaves Albany at 8:10 going 39 MPH. Another train leaves Camden at 9:49 going 62 MPH. When does the bar open in the dining car?

Well, somebody was really good at those problems to be able to figure out when you have to launch a pile of metal to catch a big rock moving at 30,000 MPH.

Yeah, I am pretty amazed by this also. But now, the bigger question, will landing this probe on this comet, change its aerodynamics and change its course to collide with earth Maybe this should be in the everything can kill you thread

umm...this is news how? Bruce Willis did this back in 1998

and it won 2 Saturn awards.

Wow. Has it really been that long?

don't even get me started about Clint, Tommy, Donald, and Jimmy...

Does Rosetta even know how to Snapchat?

I'm curious about the technological capabilities and it has me out googling trying to determine how outdated the systems are ten years later. Does it even know that Windows XP support ended??!

Personally, I think its got a lot of wow factor!
I'm still kinda amazed by the idea of the exploration of space.

I always enjoyed our space program back in the day. Great stuff!

It may have had an unfortunate landing in the shadows.

all because student loan debt will be forgiven!!!

You no longer enjoy the space program?

When the front page of the website for NASA

http://www.nasa.gov/

Is all about what someone else has done I wonder if we still have a space program.


Hopefully the new project (Orion) will bring others back to seeing it as a space program.

NASA here in Houston has been decimated. The Clear Lake, Webster, Seabrook, and League City areas have lost a lot of brain trust and jobs.

Darn the luck. It sounds like the probe landed in a pothole or a sand trap or something and may die soon because it can't charge its batteries.

Has anyone seen an update on this? i've been kind of out of the loop. i could google it, but this seemed like a chance for human interaction.

No, the media has the attention span of a dog in a yard full of rabbits, and forgot the probe when it snowed in Buffalo. I also haven't heard in a while about the volcano that was terrorizing Hawaii.

Can you imagine snow in Buffalo
What will happen next sunshine in Florida?

Last I saw was a bit on what MBH stated above, that the probe got some data sent off, then the batteries died. Didn't look into it myself at all. No idea if at some point it will catch some sun and get recharged, or if it's permanently out of commission. Either way, unfortunate!