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posted by janrinok on Thursday July 02 2015, @04:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the expect-the-unexpected dept.

The comet being studied by Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has massive sinkholes in its surface that are nearly wide enough to swallow Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza, research published on Wednesday shows.

Scientists suspect the pits formed when material on the comet's surface collapsed, similar to sinkholes on Earth, a study published in the journal Nature said.

Somewhat surprising, since the expectation would be that pits on cometary surfaces form by expansion of gases increasing pressure in cavities within the comet, eventually resulting in an eruption of mass from the comet. And the low gravity of a comet would cause the sinkholes to only form slowly.

The discovery is expected to help scientists piece together a better understanding of how comets formed and evolved.

But there are many pieces of the puzzle still to be found.

Here's the article from Reuters. See, also, our coverage of Philae Comet Lander has Woken Up Again. Wikipedia has more information on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.


Original Submission

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Breaking News: Philae Comet Lander has Woken Up Again 7 comments

According to the BBC the Philae lander has just re-established contact:

Philae was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November.

It worked for 60 hours before going to sleep when its solar-powered battery ran flat.

BBC Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos says the comet has since moved nearer to the sun and Philae has enough power to work again.

The European Space Agency (ESA) space mission to a Comet using the Rosetta spacecraft and it's comet lander Philae has awaken again now that it can absorb more sunlight. The European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany received a signal from Philae lander at 22:28 CEST on 2015-06-13. The status is currently 300 received data packets, operating temperature of -35 °C and 24 watts available. The lander is ready for operations. According to historical data inside the lander, it must have been awake earlier but had not been able to make contact. Another 8000 data packets await in Philae's mass memory which will give information on what happened to the lander in the past few days on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Philae worked for 60 hours the last time but shut down on 2014-11-15 at 01:15 CET because a lack of sunlight to run its electronics.

BBC also reports on this and the lander has supposedly tweeted too.


Original Submission

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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:23PM (#204325)

    Massive Sinkholes?
    Did it land on Greece?

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:32PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:32PM (#204329)
      Haw haw haw. You should write for SNL!
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday July 02 2015, @06:25PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday July 02 2015, @06:25PM (#204344) Journal

    Something down there may have degassed away over eons, and the thin bridges of accumulated debris simply collapsed slowly the void. They have been watching this degassing for almost a year, and can track the resultant dust plume to these so-called sinkholes

    The ESA's own page explains this degassing [esa.int].

    The pits seem to be aligned in rough rows, suggesting fault lines, or that the comet is just a loose ball of dirt with moving parts. There is barely enough gravity to keep the major chunks together. The closer to the sun it gets the more energy to melt things.
    Probably more material gets carried away by degassing than accumulates when its close to the sun.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:51AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:51AM (#204614)

    I do not think there is any indication the electric universe idea has been shown to be correct. That does not mean it is wrong, but they simply have never put the ideas into testable form yet. Either way, this thread is extremely interesting. You can see them laughing, yes laughing, at many design decisions regarding the mission that later turned out to be flawed:
    http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15172 [thunderbolts.info]

    That does not at all mean their alternative theories are correct, but there does appear to be an overconfidence in the "dirty snowball" theory regarding comets.