Monthly Archives: November 2014

Asteroids & Comets, Events, Space Science

ESA’s Philae lander touches down on Comet 67P/C-G

Congratulations to ESA and the Rosetta team on the successful landing of Philae on Comet 67P/C-G :

Farewell_Rosetta_node_full_image_2[1]

Rosetta’s lander Philae took this parting shot of its mothership shortly after separation.

Farewell_Philae_-_narrow-angle_view_node_full_image_2[1]Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera captured this parting shot
of the Philae lander after separation.

Some highlights of events leading up to the separation:

Asteroids & Comets, meteorites, Space Collecting

Christes auction of rare meteorites

Christes is holding an online auction (Nov.11-25) of 30 gorgeous meteorites. Check out the galleries:

A sampling:

NYR_10887_0017[1]

A Seymchan Meteorite Sphere
Discovered in Russia, 1967; Modern cutting.

NYR_10887_0020[1]

A Partial Slice of Imilac Meteorite
Discovered in the Atacama Desert, Chile, 1822; Modern Cutting.

NYR_10887_0022[1]A Gibeon Meteorite Sphere
Discovered in Namaland, Namibia, 1836.
Re-worked into a sphere more recently.

Asteroids & Comets, Events, Space Science

Video: ESA Rosetta webcast for Philae landing on Comet 67P/C-G

The webcast of the release of the Philae lander from the Rosetta spacecraft has begun: Rosetta | rendezvous with a comet.

The actual separation and landing will not happen till tomorrow (Nov.12):

Separation of the lander is planned for about 09:03 GMT (10:03 CET) [4:03 am EDT], and touch down should follow about seven hours later, at 16:02 GMT (17:02 CET) [11:02 am EDT].

See also latest info at:

Here’s the Rosetta and Philae landing timeline – Rosetta blog:

What_does_Philae_do_during_descent[1]

 

Here is a video about the challenges of landing on this comet:

Astronomy

Video: “What’s Up for Nov 2014” – night sky preview

Here is NASA JPL’s monthly report on upcoming night sky highlights: What’s Up for November 2014

 

Here is the link to the Meteor Shower Flux Estimator (FLUXTIMATOR) mentioned in the video.

General, Space Science, Spaceflight & Parabolic Flight

Virtual SpaceTV 3D – October/November 2014

Here is the latest episode of The Virtual SpaceTV 3D show with Amanda Bush. The programs are created by BINARY SPACE (www.binary-space.com) with story content from HobbySpace.com.

In this show, Amanda Bush talks about the following topics:
01:16 – 04:56 Virgin Galactic spaceplane suffers accident
04:57 – 07:02 Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes
07:03 – 08:18 Not all disasters
08:19 – 09:05 Rosetta to deploy comet lander
09:06 – 10:18 China and a private company fly around the Moon

Previous Virtual SpaceTV 3D shows are available on the  HobbySpace Youtube Channel.

These videos are intended as educational programs and as demonstrations of an experimental technique for generating animated presentations. The show was generated autonomously by software according to a text script. The project is described in the Virtual Producer whitepaper (Release 1.1, Oct.2013, pdf). For further information contact info@binary-space.com.