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Submitted via IRC for Bytram
It's time for Europe's comet probe, Rosetta, to die. At 4:48pm ET (20:48 UTC) Thursday, the spacecraft fired its thruster for 208 seconds, setting Rosetta on course for a controlled descent to the surface of its comet on Friday morning at approximately 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC).
In accord with the spacecraft's descent to the surface, the European Space Agency will provide live coverage via Livestream about an hour before the landing time. The live video will feature status updates from mission controllers live from the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.
The spacecraft should touch down at a walking pace, then be commanded to shut down.
Signal Lost as expected at 12:18 UTC
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UPDATE: Rosetta to Finish its Slow Descent to Comet's Surface Friday Morning - SIGNAL LOST
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In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
-- Lenny Bruce
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:37AM
Buy a globe. Just a relatively cheap, old fashioned global model of the earth. Get one that has all the bumps and crap on it, to mark the mountain ranges. Those bumps may or may not be precisely to scale, but they are close enough for argument's sake. Find Mt. Everest, and see how small it is, in relation to the rest of the earth. It's just a little pimple. You're looking for proof of the earth's curvature, at ranges of a mile, ten miles, and sixty miles? FFS - try thinking a little larger than that.
Can you get on an airplane? Not necessarily a commercial airline. Get way up high. Someone who can lift you ten miles would be great. Now, scan the horizon with your telescope, or a good pair of binoculars.
Make any excuses you care to make, but what I've seen with my own eyes is enough to convince me that the earth is round.
How about navigation? Sailors chart courses routinely, based on that round earth model. And, they get where they intended to go, if they are moderately competent.
But, you're a whole lot smarter than sailors, airline pilots, scientists, and anyone else who believes the earth to be spherical.
Why don't you take a vacation to someplace exotic? Bangkok sounds good to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @12:38PM
Can you get on an airplane? [..] Someone who can lift you ten miles would be great.
I can, and they have. It was a clear day, and I could see the Ural mountain range [wikipedia.org]as clear as day, while I was heading north and over central Germany. Impossible on a globe.
Also, if you were not too lazy to do the calculations, you would realize that 60 miles (100 km) of distance, seen from an altitude of 2 meters (6 ft) yield a "hidden height" from the alleged curve of the Earth of 2100 feet (~700 m). Yet, Chicago can be seen, impossible on a globe.
But, you're a whole lot smarter than sailors, airline pilots, scientists, and anyone else who believes the earth to be spherical.
I never claimed I was, so save it (your sarcasm) for the Judge: if you were indeed interested in what those experts had to say, you would have investigated and would know by now that there is an increasing number of experts coming forth and testifying that according to their life's work and experiences and to their best of their professional knowledge the shape of the Earth is consistent with that of a stationary plane.
Those include: international shipping expert; navy missile instructor; commercial airline pilots; military artillery trainer; industrial valve expert; land surveyor; submarine pilot; military radar operator, Antarctic base industrial plumber, and many others, the list increasing by the week. None of those people believe that the Earth is spherical, while all started believing that it was. Many have professional experience that shows them that it is stationary and flat not only as far as their eyes can see, but as far as their instruments can tell as well. Granted, some are still in the shadows, but others take no issue giving interviews on air.
I have heard their testimonies. Have you? I didn't think so: but you just assumed that those experts all "believe the world is a globe" whereas, in fact, they do not. After all, why do the actual research yourself, while you can google, eye-ball and half-ass it as usual, and then embarrass yourself by sounding certain of something you have literally no grasp on?
It is hilarious you ended up proving my point for me, though.
PS> I take note that, as usual, you are sidestepping the x200 telescope and gyroscope arguments. What is keeping you from performing those experiments?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:23PM
I know that if I leave any equatorial city, and fly about 24k miles due east or west, I will arrive back at that equatorial city in a couple days. I know that people have sailed around the earth, prior to the invention of any modern navigational gear. Sarcasm is appropriate here - how many times must it be proven that the earth is spherical?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @09:32PM
I know that if I leave any equatorial city,
If the Earth is as a disk, then the equator is a circle. You follow your bearing, and you can follow this circle back where you started. So, you can "circumnavigate" a disk as well.
The real deal is that nobody has ever circumnavigated the Earth from pole to pole: and this will never happen, because the Antarctic is a wall, not a continent.
how many times must it be proven that the earth is spherical?
Once would be enough. But this has never happened, and it never will, because the Earth is not a moving sphere. Hence the space race to "provide pictures from space, problem solved, end of debate". Hence the locking down of the North pole, space, and the "continent" of Antarctica.
Look into this all you wish: you will find it easy to debunk the globe, but you can never debunk the plane. Truth does not bulk under scrutiny, it welcomes it.