In a spectacular finish to its historical mission, the european probe Rosetta crashed voluntarily on the comet Churi, the icy tomb where he will rest after more than 12 years of space odyssey.
WE RECOMMEND: Rosetta starts the descent to come crashing down on the comet Churi
“I can confirm the descent full successful,” said the head of mission Patrick Martin in the control center of the European Space Agency (ESA in English) in Darmstadt, Germany, at the time that it announced the definitive end of the mission.
The probe pioneer was not designed for landing, but the engineers THAT did it all for the “controlled impact” on the comet, after descending for 14 hours from a height of 19 kilometres to 3.2 kilometres per hour, to be as “smooth” as possible.
from the moment of the impact, the Earth had to wait about 40 minutes to be informed, by radio waves, by the probe, which functioned on auto-pilot before turning off power to all your circuits.
“It’s like a euthanasia cosmic, it was unplugged,” said an excited Roger Bonnet, former scientific director of the ESA when the project was launched.
The probe used its last strength to build up the largest possible amount of images and scientific data of this last journey.
The greater part of the instruments of the probe were connected during the last few hours. Their goal was to take pictures very close, “suck” the gases, measure the temperature of Churi and their severity.
This spectacular final put an end to a mission of over 12 years, topped off with close to 26 months of closeness fruitful with the comet 67P/Churiumov-Guerasimenko -nicknamed Churi – in its journey around the Sun.
Journey to eternity
Planned in 1993 by the European Space Agency, the Rosetta mission was aimed at better understanding of our Solar System. The comets, which appeared four thousand 500 million years old, are part of the most primitive of this planetary system.
The mission, which cost a thousand 400 million euros, has allowed to collect as much data that will occupy scientists “for decades”, according to ESA.
The mission was marked by the vicissitudes of the robot-laboratory Philae, which was the first to land on a comet, on 12 November 2014. Inert since the July 2015 sold out completely its batteries, Philae was located at the beginning of September by the probe.
The comet 67P is currently directed towards the orbit of Jupiter. Will continue away from the Sun in its elliptical path, until about 850 million kilometers of distance from our star king.
And with him will depart the remains of Rosetta, with more than seven thousand 900 million kilometres above since its launch in 2004, to escort the comet since August 2014.
Fitted with large solar panels, the probe has been losing power. For that reason, ESA decided to terminate its mission as the controls.
“Now it is like a sleeping beauty,” said Roger Bonnet.
Rosetta had no possibility of contact with the Earth once in the soil because they no longer have the ability to focus on your main antenna, according to Sylvain Lodiot, head of operations at ESA.
The probe came to rest in an area situated in the head of the comet where there are holes, some circular depressions wide and deep, where the escaping jets of gas and dust when the celestial body is approaching the Sun.
The scientists are now waiting for answers on the role that could play the comets in the emergence of life on Earth.
AFC
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