Coffee Table Science

In an interesting turn of events, scientists at the European Space Agency are having a difficult time determining the perfect landing spot for Rosetta 's probe, Philae . An earlier update from the agency at the beginning of the month had revealed that 5 landing spots had been shortlisted from the the probable list of 10 chosen first.  Comet 67P. Image source: www.dailymail.co.uk But further analysis of these sites has shown that none of them seem safe enough for Philae to land. Rosetta has been returning high resolution images of these probable sites of landing and the comet 67P seems to have layered cliffs along most of the landing sites that have been identified so far. Philae needs a landing strip close to 1 km long and hitting one of the layered cliffs might end its mission prematurely.  The comet's duck shaped body does not make life easier as well. There is sufficient landing space on some other sites on the comet but due to their location, they do not h

Artist's rendition of Rosetta approaching comet 67P Image Source: ESA For the next few days (and probably many many years), you are likely to come across people speak of the greatness of 'Rosetta' and about her achievements and before you start thinking that the Rosetta is some entrepreneur, social worker, sportswoman or the worst, a movie star, let us make it very clear that Rosetta is actually a spacecraft. and still a Superstar! Here are 5 things that have make Rosetta famous! Rosetta, is a spacecraft built by the European Space Agency , at a cost of 1.3 billion Euros, with the aim to study the comet 67P/ Churyumov- Gerasimenko. Discovered in 1969, the comet orbits around our Sun every 6.6 years and Rosetta's mission to understand what this comet is made up. The mission will give us scientists further information on how our Solar System originated and evolved, since our Sun, planets and all the comets are made up of the same pre-solar nebula that existed ov