A few days ago, the world watched and rejoiced while the small Philae spacecraft landed on the surface of the comet tchouri. However, it was soon realized that his harpoons were not triggered and the machine had bounced off the comet.
Philae has soared to nearly a mile high again before incredibly slowly falling for nearly two hours before jumping again, this time less high and less time, and finish in unknown territory.
It took some time, but images taken by Rosetta -which is in orbit around the comète- at the time of first contact between Philae and the comet were eventually released by the European Space Agency (ESA). The video below shows the time just before and just after where the Philae bounced off the comet.
At this time, the planetary geologist and blogger Emily Lakdawalla had speculated that it could Philae and see his shadow in the second image, but there was so much noise on the image I was quite skeptical.
It turns out she was right.
Here is a very nice gif showing the two images, with the impact site listed on the first and the machine (and its shadow) on the second.
ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM; pre-processed by Mikel Canania
Incredible! Astrophysicist Eamonn Kerins was even better: he created a third image from the first two (difference imaging) to show what had changed between the two. And we see clearly Philae and its shadow.
DIA imaging ofESA_Rosetta NavCam before / after pictures of the @ Philae2014 initial landing site. Does it show Philae? pic.twitter.com/ymL42BBj7m
- Eamonn Kerins (Eamonn_Kerins) November 16, 2014
We also see a lot of bright pixels on the third picture. These are probably “hot pixel” overactive these points on the detector unit. There are also black next points, which are the result of image processing. It should be noted that the item presented as Philae is more blurred and his shadow is a few pixels below. I’m pretty convinced by it.
At first, I was skeptical because the projected bottom right plume appeared to be the same in both images. He was also imitated in the upper right; and both seem to be a shadow of a ridge. In the third image, we no longer see them, which means that it is probably just shadows. This was down by chance up when the craft landed.
ESA posted this rebounding on mounting Philae comet / SA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA
And a reminder: This is a photo of a 100 kg machine the size of a chair whose weight is now less than 30 grams (with the gravity exerted) impinging the surface of a ball of dirty snow four miles wide, almost battery for the intended location. And this is seen by another spacecraft that took ten years to reach his goal and reached a speed of 40,000 km / h to go into orbit around a comet.
all this is a first for humanity. So yeah. Cool.
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