Against all betting odds , Philae has confirmed that the first ever bore of a comet has happened ! ESA has have telemetry data indicating that the drill worked . They also managed to send ALL data before going into sleep modality . What is Philae going to find ? Perhaps the building block of spirit ? UPDATE 5 .
This is to me themost exciting part of this delegation : COSAC — the Cometary Sampling and Composition experiment — is now going to analyze the soil grabbed by the drill in hunting of complex constituent molecules . If they find them , it will be further substantiation than planetary life — or at least the construction block for it — could travel across the universe in a cognitive process known as panspermia .
fundamentally , panspermia is the hypothesis that says that living or its construction block could have uprise in other places across galaxy and planetary arrangement , travelling through space in comets and asteroids that ensue from hit . It sound like a dotty construct , but NASAplanetary scientist Chris McKayexplainedin this io9 articlewhy this is a absolutely valid hypothesis that require further investigation :
1 . The geologic evidence for the early life on Earth is very other , presently after the end of the former outpouring . There is dear grounds for life-time on Earth at 3.5 billion long time ago , indirect grounds at 3.8 billion . The end of the late heavy bombardment is 3.8 billion years ago .
2 . The genetical grounds point that the last cosmopolitan common ancestor ( LUCA ) of sprightliness could have been roughly 3.5 billion years ago ( but with large precariousness ) and that LUCA was a fairly advanced life form in price of metabolic and genetic capabilities .
1 and 2 together give the impression that life look on Earth soon after the formation of suitable environments and it appear to have come in being unusually developed – like Athena born full mold from the head of Zeus .
3 . rock ‘n’ roll from Mars have journey to Earth and the interior temperature see in these rocks during this trip would not have sterilized the interiors . Thus in principle life can be contain from Mars to Earth .
4 . Mars did not tolerate the large Moon - forming impingement that would have been detrimental to the early development of life story on Earth .
3 and 4 have lead to the prompting that Mars would have been a beneficial place for life to start in the early Solar System and it could have then been carried to Earth via meteorites .
5 . constitutional molecule are far-flung in comets , asteroids , and the interstellar medium .
6 . comet could have supported subsurface liquid water environments soon after their shaping due to internal heating by radioactive decay of radioactive aluminum .
7 . As comets move past the Earth they shed junk which reconcile into Earth ’s atmosphere .
5 , 6 and 7 have conduct to the suggestion that life could have start in the interstellar medium or in small bodies such as comets and then been carried to the Earth by comet dust .
So , yes panspermia is a valid scientific hypotheses and warrants further investigating .
In other good tidings , ESA has reassert that the rotation tactic has been successful : Philae has turned 35 degree ! “ seem like a whole unexampled comet from this angle ! ” they say . Looking forward for the novel pictures , but especially from the data point from COSAC .
Update 1 : ESA Operations confirmsthat Philae ’s battery is dying quickly : ” Communication connectedness with Philae persist well . Teams working to download as much datum as possible before battery depleted . ” Sad news show , everyone .
We may never know the resultant role unless the panels get some Dominicus .
Update 2 : Philae is reporting that all data collected has been download . It say it ’s a 100 % successful mission , but it ’s not clear yet if data from COSAC has been downloaded yet .
Update 3 : ESA Operations reportsthat Philae is not beat yet and they just switched it to standy way to save whatever energy is left . Here ’s hop-skip those gore get some mightiness in for the next pass .
Update 4 : ESA seems jolly optimistic that the lander would come through past a period of sleep , at least judging by these tweets .
My#lifeonacomethas just begun@ESA_Rosetta . I ’ll tell you more about my raw home , comet#67Psoon … zzzzz#CometLanding
— Philae Lander ( @Philae2014)November 15 , 2014
They also added this through the Rosetta twitter accoun :
S’ok Philae , I ’ve contract it from here for now . Rest well …
So do n’t discard Philae just yet ! The short chum is not numb . It ’s just sleeping and it may awaken up as the comet gets closer to the Sun and the solar panels get more top executive in .
Update 5 : It ’s prescribed , Philae is catch some Z’s .
With its batteries depleted and not enough sunlight useable to recharge , Philae has fallen into ‘ unwarranted mode ’ — a possibly long silence . In this mode , all instruments and most systems on instrument panel are shut down .
“ Prior to falling silent , the lander was capable to impart all science datum garner during the First Science Sequence , ” says DLR ’s Stephan Ulamec , Lander manager , who was in the main command room at ESOC tonight .
“ This machine performed magnificently under tough conditions , and we can be fully proud of the incredible scientific succeeder Philae has delivered . ”
Contact was lost at 00:36 UTC / 01:36 CET , not long before the scheduled communication loss that would have pass anyway as Rosetta orbited below the horizon .
From now on , no link would be potential unless sufficient sunshine fall on the solar panels to generate enough power to wake it up . The possibility that this may happen was boost this evening when delegacy controllers direct commands to rotate the lander ’s main body , to which the solar panel are sterilise . This may have expose more control board area to sunlight .
The next possible communicating slot begins on 15 November at about 10:00 UTC / 11:00 CET . The satellite will listen for a sign , and will continue doing so when its orbit enables communication profile .
Sleep well , little crony . See you again when you get confining to dwelling !
philae
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