Comet

controlled from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany and at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Madrid, Spain. Rosetta is operated from the ground and commands are sent to the craft to adjust its path towards the comet. Theses commands can take up to 50 minutes to reach Rosetta from Earth. Rosetta’s Science Ground Segment are responsible for the collection and distribution of the scientific data that Rosetta sends back to Earth. Rosetta has built in…

Twenty three years ago, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered by Carolyn S. and Eugene M. Shoemaker and David H. Levy, hence the name. That breezy March night as they were taking pictures of the sky to look for comets, they noticed something strange about some of the comets they found. Because it was the nineth comet they found, they named it Shoemaker-Levy 9, or SL9. As they looked closer, they realized that the comet was near Jupiter. Doing some research on SL9, they discovered it has been…

Max There is a lot of aspects of our solar system that we don’t know about. Aspects such as what comets do day to day and what our solar system is completely made up of. The Philae mission helped us out on some of those aspects and was important for scientific research because of how they learned more information about comets and how our solar system works. Learning more information about comets is one of the main aspects in this story. For example, Cameron Keady, the author of this story,…

probe built o study the comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko with a module for orbitng and landing caled Philae. This robot was launched by the European Space Agency and it launched Roseta in March of 204. It ok the rocket en years to reach the comet after being launched from French Guiana on march 2, 204. but it also became the first o circle or orbit a comet. This was a signifcant achievement because up until then, other ockets had only ben able to fly by or close to the comets. In this case,…

most notably, the first female to work as a professional astronomer in the United States. She gained fame in 1847 when she excused herself from a dinner party to survey the sky using her father’s telescope, and discovered a comet. This comet became known as “Miss Mitchell’s Comet” and won her a gold medal which was presented to her by the Danish government (Mitchell 1889, 331-343). Mitchell was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts to Quaker parents. She was born into a community which was rather…

Rosetta did is a huge accomplishment. Along with traveling through the asteroid belt, Rosetta was also the first to fly close to Jupiter's orbit using solar cells as its main power source. Another great first was orbiting a comet nucleus. A comet nucleus is the solid center part of a comet. Also commonly referred to as dirty snowball or an icy dirtball by some people. The results of the mission were very useful for scientists. For example, scientists originally discovered that 67P’s magnetic…

In a recent NASA blog post, Kelsi Singer, a researcher at Southwest Research Institute working on NASA’s New Horizons, goes over an interesting discovery made about Pluto: It seems to have a near infinite supply of nitrogen. Pluto is Gassy The most recent images returned by New Horizons shows that Pluto’s surface is mostly composed of nitrogen, just like Earth’s. There is; however, about a 20 percent difference in composition; Earth’s atmosphere is around ~78 percent nitrogen while Pluto’s is…

probe, called the Philae lander, is the first spacecraft to set down on a comet. Comet probes may shield light on Earth's past, by Ashley Yeager, comets are rubble left over from the birth of the solar system. By studying these hunks of rock, dust, and ice, scientists hope to better understand the early history of the solar system- including Earth’s early years. And never has the chance of doing this been better than on the comet under Philae’s robotic feet. The Philae mission was important for…

One fortunate resident was able to get two-thirds of those the other day on film. One video shows a cigar-shaped UFO flying over the skies of Saint Petersburg. Scientists were not available to comment as they had their hands full with a weird new comet. Plus, no one believes a Florida man anyway. DID UFO CIGAR ESCAPE FROM CUBA? A Florida man in Saint Petersburg caught some interesting footage the other day. No, it was not some girls gone wild at spring break, but a strange UFO flying in the…

celestial fireworks with this year’s Orionid Meteor Shower. Every year as the Earth cruises past an expanse of space littered with the remains of Halley’s Comet, the skies are lit with fast moving beams of light. NASA announced that the shower will begin on Wednesday and continue on till Thursday at dawn. The Time Earth is Closest to Halley’s Comet Debris Stream The best time for viewing will be on Thursday just before dawn, when the shower will reach its peak and it’ll be easiest to spot the…