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posted by janrinok on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the wheee! dept.

With just 11 days before Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko reaches perihelion, we get a look at recent images and results released by the European Space Agency from the Philae lander along with spectacular 3D photos from Rosetta's high resolution camera.

Remarkably, some 80% of the first science sequence was completed in the 64 hours before Philae fell into hibernation. Although unintentional, the failed landing attempt led to the unexpected bonus of getting data from two collection sites—the planned touchdown at Agilkia and its current precarious location at Abydos.

After first touching down, Philae was able to use its gas-sniffing Ptolemy and COSAC instruments to determine the makeup of the comet's atmosphere and surface materials. COSAC analyzed samples that entered tubes at the bottom of the lander and found ice-poor dust grains that were rich in organic compounds containing carbon and nitrogen. It found 16 in all including methyl isocyanate, acetone, propionaldehyde and acetamide that had never been seen in comets before.

While you and I may not be familiar with some of these organics, their complexity hints that even in the deep cold and radiation-saturated no man's land of outer space, a rich assortment of organic materials can evolve. Colliding with Earth during its early history, comets may have delivered chemicals essential for the evolution of life.

Ptolemy sampled the atmosphere entering tubes at the top of the lander and identified water vapor, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, along with smaller amounts of carbon-bearing organic compounds, including formaldehyde. Some of these juicy organic delights have long been thought to have played a role in life's origins. Formaldehyde reacts with other commonly available materials to form complex sugars like ribose which forms the backbone of RNA and is related to the sugar deoxyribose, the "D" in DNA.

ROLIS (Rosetta Lander Imaging System) images taken shortly before the first touchdown revealed a surface of 3-foot-wide (meter-size) irregular-shaped blocks and coarse "soil" or regolith covered in "pebbles" 4-20 inches (10–50 cm) across as well as a mix of smaller debris.

[...]

"With perihelion fast approaching, we are busy monitoring the comet's activity from a safe distance and looking for any changes in the surface features, and we hope that Philae will be able to send us complementary reports from its location on the surface," said Philae lander manager Stephan Ulamec.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:04PM (#217892)

    This submission contains a few errors. First, CO2 is not a juicy organic delight. It is a toxic, acidic greenhouse gas. Also it is not a fact that comets collided with the earth early in its history, that is speculative.

    It is interesting that the dust grains are described as ice poor, that has been my main interest regarding this comet. Wheres the ice?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:14PM (#217895)

    I was actually just here to post about the phrase "juicy organic delights" too - if I'd had breakfast I'd have lost it. And I never even managed to read any of the rest of the submission.

  • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday August 04 2015, @04:38PM

    by inertnet (4071) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @04:38PM (#217978) Journal

    CO2 is not a juicy organic delight.

    To you it isn't, but it is to a planet that has potential to develop life.

    It is a toxic, acidic greenhouse gas.

    To you and me. Plants love it.

    Also it is not a fact that comets collided with the earth early in its history, that is speculative.

    It's also extremely likely that it actually did happen.

    It is interesting that the dust grains are described as ice poor, that has been my main interest regarding this comet. Wheres the ice?

    The thing must have been around the sun a couple of times. I'd be surprised if surface dust had contained a lot of ice.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @05:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @05:59PM (#218002)

      The thing must have been around the sun a couple of times. I'd be surprised if surface dust had contained a lot of ice.

      You should have helped plan the mission then, since they counted on landing on ice:

      The first touchdown recorded by Philae occurred at 15:34 GMT (with the signal arriving on Earth at 16:03 GMT), but it later transpired that the harpoons and ice screws did not deploy as planned

      http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov/news/philae-settles-dust-covered-ice [nasa.gov]

      • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:12PM

        by inertnet (4071) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:12PM (#218076) Journal

        Those ice screws are for the ice beneath the dust.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:29PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:29PM (#218088)

          ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has made its first temperature measurements of its target comet, finding that it is too hot to be covered in ice and must instead have a dark, dusty crust.

          http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_takes_comet_s_temperature [esa.int]

          • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:43PM

            by inertnet (4071) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:43PM (#218100) Journal

            Thank you for confirming that the surface was determined to be mostly dust instead of ice.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:54PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @08:54PM (#218117)

              So what is "crusty"? How deep is the ice?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @04:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @04:26AM (#218340)

      Actually, CO2 isn't toxic at all to life on this planet: if it were, you wouldn't be exhaling it with every breath. At high levels it is a simple asphyxiant to animal life, and at very high levels even to green plants. It is also only mildly acidic, both as carbonate and anhydride:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphyxiant [wikipedia.org]
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid [wikipedia.org]

      In reality, it is really free oxygen itself that is poisonous to life not adapted to it like ourselves:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperoxia [wikipedia.org]
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaerophile [wikipedia.org] (and friends)

      One difference is that you'll feel like you're suffocating because the human body senses CO2 (as carbonate?) level rather that O2 levels to determine your breathing rate and "shortness of breath". Nitrogen Asphyxiation as a suicide or execution method relies on this as you don't "feel it coming", but breathe normally until you stop breathing at all due to true hypoxia.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation [wikipedia.org]