Sub Rosa

(Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk - Accessed 06/08/14)

The Rosetta probe and Comet 67P are back in the news.  The probe is set to rendezvous within 100km (62 miles) of the comet around about Wednesday and will perform a triangular movement around the object, whilst it is hurtling through space at a nifty 55.000km per hour (34,000 mph).  It will collect information, before jettisoning a fridge-sized lander named Philae, thus heralding scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) as "the sexiest, most fantastic mission possible" (Source -http://www.bbc.co.uk/ - Accessed 06/08/14).

Sorry ESA - whereas I see all of the metaphors lined up to give the 'excitable' attributes, it is clearly the wrong adjective.  I am all for finding out the building blocks of life etc, but let's face it - it is a giant techno dragonfly trying to mount a space duck.  Fascinating it is - sexy it is not. Or is that how technerds get their rocks off - by harpooning a comet?

I can hear the Gunther Ding Dong Song song as I type...

Full Duck and video  ------------------------------------> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28659783

There is a comet the size of an ice mountain hurtling through space.  Originally thought to be peanut-shaped, the lyrically-named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has now been identified as a “contact binary” (Source – Accessed 17/07/14), a possible combination of two different parts
( Comet under cut )
The Rosetta probe will be firing up its thrusters sometime in early August and will hope to be riding on the 'ice bronco' (calculated to be about 4km wide) around early November. The mission is to "return some remarkable insights on the behaviour and chemical make-up of its ice quarry" (Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27517090 - Accessed 17/07/14).

Full story and past articles --------------->  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27110882
Alas, I am far more likely to remember failed missions like the Beagle 2 which disapeared down a Mars crater, like a very expensive golf ball down a red dusty hole. I remember the commotion about comet Ison last November, which promised a lot, but disintegrated before it passed us by.  I have had a brief read and I presume that since Rosetta is hanging around the Jupiter corridor, little 67P is not likely to hurtle our way.  Still, if they are able to pull this off, it will be interesting.