Not Long Until Touchdown

[bibblebub]

The Philae lander from the Rosetta mission is due to land on Comet 67P in about an hour (but it will take just under 1/2 hour for confirmation to be received).

Here's the latest from the European Space Agency website for the mission

http://rosetta.esa.int/

[TWR]

"News Flash"

Lander greeted by Illegals, asking have you our JSA

[bibblebub]

hurrah

(darned electricians in the building where I live turned off power and lighting for almost 30 minutes but it finally came back just before the landing was confirmed)

[Frank97]

Looks like Dr Who has sent half the Tardis.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30012854

[Peter Pedant]

Has Lady Di knocked on a window and said:
'Ya, Hi... has anyone missed me ? ' ..... or Elvis

[DTCwordfan]

Done and it's talking, quite an achievement. Now are there any aliens there reading the Daily Mail?

[Peter Pedant]

DTC I hesitate to ask what would be in her mouth ....

[emeritus]

This Post is in Science not CB

[Old_Geezer]

Anchor issues though.

[DTCwordfan]

well one for you emeritus, when will they know about the water situation and amino acids, if comets are indeed the courriers of such essentials.

[emeritus]

First experimental phase was during descent, the initial experiments upon landing explained here.

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/10/philaes-first-science-sequence-timeline/

[Peter Pedant]

Interesting paper in Nature this week on RNA lariats and autocatalytic processes which are important in deciding how it all started

[DTCwordfan]

thanks...

[sunny-dave]

A nice simple overview of the mission so far :

http://i100.independent.co.uk/image/11456-46ros7.jpg

[marval]

This is a brilliant achievement, well done to all.

[Old_Geezer]

Back to the announcements / pictures hopefully

[Peter Pedant]

May have tipped over - news conference delayed

[Old_Geezer]

They lost contact fractionally earlier than expected, but are optimistic they'll pick up radio contact again tomorrow.

Additionally they think they had a small bounce on landing.

[Frank97]

Signal re-established apparently. :-)

[janbee]

Hope we don't see that rather large over excited woman being interviewed. She certainly shouldn't be jumping up and down without the support of stronger foundation garments !