-Paper Dragon
November 12th, 2014. Space, the final frontier.
310 million miles from earth, the Rosetta Space Probe released a machine called Philae. Philae is 220 lbs, the size of a washing machine. Rosetta was launched in 2004 and it has circled the earth until it gained enough momentum to launch out into space at its target, comet 67P. Rosetta has floated next to 67P since August.
67P is floating at 41,000 mph and it has been for about 4 million years, according to scientists. It is 2.5 miles in diameter. Now, what about Philae and this mysterious mission? Philae was supposed to harpoon the comet, but it malfunctioned. Miraculously, it landed after much painstaking bouncing off the surface. Philae has been successfully sent onto the surface of 67P to take photographs and take samples of the interior rock.
However, Philae landed in the shadow of a cliff. This is unfortunate because it is solar-powered. It had 64 hours of battery life, but it is now dead. Its mother ship, the Rosetta, is still orbiting 67P. Scientists think that when the comet gets closer to the sun, Philae will wake up and continue its experiments, but this could take quite a while and we shouldn’t expect it to come back home soon.
November 12th, 2014. Space, the final frontier.
310 million miles from earth, the Rosetta Space Probe released a machine called Philae. Philae is 220 lbs, the size of a washing machine. Rosetta was launched in 2004 and it has circled the earth until it gained enough momentum to launch out into space at its target, comet 67P. Rosetta has floated next to 67P since August.
67P is floating at 41,000 mph and it has been for about 4 million years, according to scientists. It is 2.5 miles in diameter. Now, what about Philae and this mysterious mission? Philae was supposed to harpoon the comet, but it malfunctioned. Miraculously, it landed after much painstaking bouncing off the surface. Philae has been successfully sent onto the surface of 67P to take photographs and take samples of the interior rock.
However, Philae landed in the shadow of a cliff. This is unfortunate because it is solar-powered. It had 64 hours of battery life, but it is now dead. Its mother ship, the Rosetta, is still orbiting 67P. Scientists think that when the comet gets closer to the sun, Philae will wake up and continue its experiments, but this could take quite a while and we shouldn’t expect it to come back home soon.