Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has its name due to the ukranian scientist who discovered it
(see in 720p HD)
If you were curious about my last post and the scheduled Rosetta's mission, here is a short movie produced by ESA which allows us to know with more detail about what scientists are up to with this mission and what space knowledge can we expect to get further on finding the origins of the universe.
Synthetically this will be the longest duration encounter with a comet. It involves a spacecraft called Rosetta, which will map the comet surface and its magnetic fields.
After 6 months orbiting the comet, which is 4 Km long with the shape of a potatoe, a Lander will be detached.
This lander, called Philae, got its name from the island on the Nile, in Egypt, where was found the obelisk which allowed to decode the Rosetta Stone, so I'm sure that this name will function as an encouragement for scientists hopefully decoding on this mission some of the mysteries that may lay on the comet' s nucleus.
Philae will descend from Rosetta to the surface and as soon as it touches it, once there's little gravity, there will be 3 harpons that will anchor the lander securely to the surface.
The Lander is full equipped with the latest technology in order to get acquired measures at the surface. Existing jets and geysers will be evaluated, real surface temperatures, gravity and a highly sophisticated equipment will "read" and perform combustion and chemical analysis from the 4.5 billion years old comet composition, sending afterwards its results, through the solar and battery powered ' antennas, first to Rosetta and from there to ESA, on Earth.
Looking forward for this great space adventure I'm sure that all data collected will give us clues about the origins of the universe and maybe, who knows, life somewhere else.
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