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Later today we should see if the space probe Rosetta will wake up from a 2.5 year slumber and start its rendezvous with the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It was sent up by the European Space Agency and has a large UK contribution, around half of the experiments on board involve British scientists, while the craft itself was designed and built by engineers at Astrium UK.
It has been on it’s mission for 10 years and was put to sleep in order to conserve power and if all goes to plan and it does wake up from it’s long sleep then it will resume it’s mission and hopefully sometime in August it will attach it’s own lander craft named Philae to the comet by firing harpoons into the surface, so wakey, wakey Rosetta and good luck!
I find all this stuff fascinating but completely mind blowing. We mortals cannot really comprehend 'space' and the concept of infinity.
Apparently when Rosetta (great name) wakes up one of its first tasks is to locate earth so that its antenna can point in the right direction. With earth many millions of miles away that is even smaller than the proverbial needle in a haystack
I also hope that all goes well and contact is again established and the landing craft is successful......
I understand that Rosetta is about 500 million miles away. By my calculations it would take about 45minutes for a radio signal to travel that far. So, if an instruction is sent to the craft you must expect to wait about 90 minutes before you get 'Copy that'
I get it but I don't. It amazes me at the level that the people who are working with Rosetta are thinking at and how they've been able to put it all together. Their accomplishments are phenomenal and so far away from how my own brain works. Even the time spans they're talking about are phenomenal too in comparison to the time frames normal people use in their daily lives.
I find it facinating that they have slung it around the Earth and Mars a couple of times to gain some speed then hurled it off to intercept a speeding comet at some point in space and time and all this will be done with little or no intervention when it actually happens, truly mind boggling.
Good to have something exciting (at least to the likes of us with an interest) in the news and to appreciate the capability of todays technology. I can't understand why there are fewer university students doing engineering, physics, and technology. To me they are the most exciting subjects to get involved in.
Mrs G had an appointment last week at the hospital in the AMD (Age Related Macula Degeneration) department. This is an eye condition that can lead to blindness and medical science together with engineering technology have made tremendous strides in treating and controlling the condition. They have eye scanners that not only take images of the eye but also do a kind of MRI of the tissue surrounding the retina so that they can see if there is any fluid in the retina wall.
I watched all this going on and couldn't resist a comment of how medicine and technology come together these days to progress treatment for things that just a few years ago were untreatable.
And what about the latest eye treatment where they have injected some sort of DNA into the eye and it has started to restore vision in some people with certain types of eye disease.
Haven't heard about the latest in eye restoration technology but the advances medicine and science are making is truly phenomenal.
Hopefully they'll be a TV Special on Rosetta in the near future. Other than watching the TV News almost ALL my TV viewing is documentaries, Nat Geo channels etc.
I became a member of these forums in November 2006, less than 2 years after Keefy had created them. In those years and up until 2013 we visited Egypt at least twice a year so membership of the forums...
IN CASE YOU DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW THIS LITTLE TIDBIT OF TRIVIA....
ON JULY 20, 1969, AS COMMANDER OF THE APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE, NEIL ARMSTRONG WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO SET FOOT ON THE MOON.
HIS FIRST...
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LLL, just add a smilie or two. That's why you often see posters putting :))) :))) :))). i think Keefy has made it like that to avoid problems from outside the forums.
Tuesday picked up a new dog from the council kennel, a kneehigh white with black spots wire coat bitch. I gave her a bath outside (never moved a foot) clipped her chin and she and Oggie liked each...
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Good luck with the new doggie Jay :up she seems to be off to a good start ;)
Been watching the airsea rescue chopper searching along the sea shore all morning then the land rescue appear............I really hope this is not a sad ending.
then it turns
passing my way...
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No news yet, I've heard of folks lost in these waters to turn up on rocks months later , sadly some are never seen again.
