lunes, 5 de septiembre de 2016

ESA : Philae found! .- Módulo de aterrizaje Philae, fue encontrado en una grieta del Cometa 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Philae_found
A menos de un mes antes del final de la misión, cámara de alta resolución de Rosetta ha revelado el aterrizador(Robot)Philae, está encajada en una grieta oscura, en el cometa 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Las imágenes fueron tomadas el 2 de septiembre por la cámara de ángulo estrecho de Osiris como el orbitador se quedó a 2,7 km de la superficie y muestran claramente el cuerpo principal del módulo de aterrizaje, junto con dos de sus tres patas.

Las imágenes también proporcionan una prueba de orientación de Philae, por lo que es claro por qué el establecimiento de comunicaciones era tan difícil después de su aterrizaje el 12 de noviembre de 2014.

(CNN) - Se creía que Philae, el pequeño robot espacial que cautivó corazones alrededor del mundo, se había perdido para siempre.
Pero científicos anunciaron encantados el domingo que el módulo de la Agencia Espacial Europea está de regreso de entre los muertos cósmicos.
Nuevas imágenes descargadas de la sonda Rosetta en órbita alrededor del cometa 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko muestran al robot Philae en medio de unas rocas. Rosetta tomó las imágenes just a tiempo, porque su misión termina en menos de un mes.



Philae found

Philae found!

5 September 2016
Less than a month before the end of the mission, Rosetta’s high-resolution camera has revealed the Philae lander wedged into a dark crack on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
The images were taken on 2 September by the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera as the orbiter came within 2.7 km of the surface and clearly show the main body of the lander, along with two of its three legs.
The images also provide proof of Philae’s orientation, making it clear why establishing communications was so difficult following its landing on 12 November 2014.

Philae close-up

“With only a month left of the Rosetta mission, we are so happy to have finally imaged Philae, and to see it in such amazing detail,” says Cecilia Tubiana of the OSIRIS camera team, the first person to see the images when they were downlinked from Rosetta yesterday.
“After months of work, with the focus and the evidence pointing more and more to this lander candidate, I’m very excited and thrilled that we finally have this all-important picture of Philae sitting in Abydos,” says ESA’s Laurence O’Rourke, who has been coordinating the search efforts over the last months at ESA, with the OSIRIS and Lander Science Operations and Navigation Center (SONC, CNES) teams.
Philae was last seen when it first touched down at Agilkia, bounced and then flew for another two hours before ending up at a location later named Abydos, on the comet’s smaller lobe.
After three days, Philae's primary battery was exhausted and the lander went into hibernation, only to wake up again and communicate briefly with Rosetta in June and July 2015 as the comet came closer to the Sun and more power was available.

OSIRIS narrow-angle camera image with Philae, 2 September

However, until today, the precise location was not known. Radio ranging data tied its location down to an area spanning a few tens of metres, but a number of potential candidate objects identified in relatively low-resolution images taken from larger distances could not be analysed in detail until recently.
While most candidates could be discarded from analysis of the imagery and other techniques, evidence continued to build towards one particular target, which is now confirmed in images taken unprecedentedly close to the surface of the comet.
At 2.7 km, the resolution of the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera is about 5 cm/pixel, sufficient to reveal characteristic features of Philae’s 1 m-sized body and its legs, as seen in these definitive pictures.
                                                                       

Philae close-up, labelled
“This remarkable discovery comes at the end of a long, painstaking search,” says Patrick Martin, ESA’s Rosetta Mission Manager. “We were beginning to think that Philae would remain lost forever. It is incredible we have captured this at the final hour.”
“This wonderful news means that we now have the missing ‘ground-truth’ information needed to put Philae’s three days of science into proper context, now that we know where that ground actually is!” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.
"Now that the lander search is finished we feel ready for Rosetta's landing, and look forward to capturing even closer images of Rosetta's touchdown site,” adds Holger Sierks, principal investigator of the OSIRIS camera.
The discovery comes less than a month before Rosetta descends to the comet’s surface. On 30 September, the orbiter will be sent on a final one-way mission to investigate the comet from close up, including the open pits in the Ma’at region, where it is hoped that critical observations will help to reveal secrets of the body’s interior structure.
Further information on the search that led to the discovery of Philae, along with additional images, will be made available soon.
ESA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
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