In November 2014 , after traveling 10 years and hundred of millions of land mile , a European space vehicle will touch down on a two - and - a - half - mile - wide ball of ice and junk as it hurtles through space towards the sun . And if all goes according to plan , this unprecedented feat could eventually give us what we involve to understand the line of life on Earth . It ’s just the “ according to plan ” that ’s the tricky part .
Until now , any attempt at studying a comet has involved either flying by them in attempt to tally their speed , or literally crash into them and just sort of hoping that the material break off will offer some kind of penetration . This unexampled spacecraft , however , is a much more subtle creature ; it ’s expend the past 10 years meticulously stalking its comet fair game .
The space vehicle , dubbed Rosetta , was actually launched in 2004 and has been hibernate in sopor mode since 2011 to save power as it wait along the outer - edge of the solar system for its concluding goal , the ever - so - catchily named Churyumov - Gerasimenko comet . Then , at 10 am on January 20 ( just over a month from now ) Rosetta will waken up from its small catnap and get ready charm the comet as it comes thrust by .
As soon as it ’s alert , Rosetta will immediately start film navigational sighting of the comet , give scientists the entropy they ask to take greenback of any unexpected slip in the comet ’s course and make one final course correction before go - clock time . Then , by August , the space vehicle will finally have made its agency into Churyumov Gerasimenko ’s direct vicinity , at which point it will circle the comet and reconstruct a single-valued function of its surface . By November , the function will have been made , the course plotted , and Rosetta ’s little lander name Philae will be air to settle on down .
circle the comet is no everyday attempt at domain , though . Churyumov Gerasimenko scarce has any sombreness , so Rosetta is going to have to apply its blasters to maintain any sort of orbit around it . What ’s more , Raw Storynotes that as Rosetta starts getting confining to the sun , the “ feather of vapour and gas pouring off 67P / Churyumov - Gerasimenko ’s surface will hit the investigation ’s 14 - metre - long solar panels like winds billowing out a sail . ” So keep a steady R-2 is get to be a highly touch-and-go labor .
Nothing like this has ever even been attempted outside of 1998’sDeep ImpactandArmageddon , and there ’s a whole innkeeper of possible problems that come with such uncharted soil . For one , the scientists involved in the military mission do n’t in reality have any idea what Churyumov - Gerasimenko ’s surface is in reality like , explaining toThe Telegraphthat it could resemble either “ concrete or candyfloss . ” Which , depending on your cotton wool confect preferences , could be a pretty huge disparity . There ’s also the teeny tiny small publication of the comet being fundamentally void of , you know , solemnity . So to batten down itself , the lander is go to have to shoot a spear into the race comet ’s control surface and quite literally gimp a ride .
And as if all that was n’t enough , Rosetta has been all out of communication with Earth during the 957 days it ’s been catnap along the further reaches of blank space . So naturally , the spacecraft ’s makers are a piffling anxious about the imminent reunion . As Dr. Chris Carr , the principal research worker on the imperial team , toldThe Telegraph :
It is very unusual to put something into hibernation when it has never been used before . To do it with something you ’ve just spent several hundred million euros on , to change over it off and let it drift into planetary blank space for two years without any contact lens is wholly unprecedented .
verbalise to Raw Story , Mark McCaughream , the agency ’s senior scientific adviser , elaborated on the team ’s tense nerves :
If the consternation give out and Rosetta does not rouse itself , we will be in trouble . On the daylight , we will all be waiting in the command way , anxious to learn a sign from Rosetta . However , it will take several hours for the guile to make out its wakeup function before it transmits a message to Earth to let us know it is active and well . It will be a nerve - wracking day .
Considering how risky this bout of hibernation is , energy conservation might seem like a strange antecedency . It ’s not by selection , though . Rosetta is a for the most part solar - power beast , and being four - and - a - half fourth dimension the Earth ’s space from the sun means that any solar rays it might catch would be far too faint to provide any lasting power . So countenance ’s just pray that Rosetta ’s a dawning someone .
Of naturally , with such a high risk come the potential for major wages . As the comet issue forth closer to the Sun , it heats up and becomes what scientists call “ active , ” a body politic in which the comet ’s ice starts to melt and sheds gas . And because the comet has remain nearly unmoved since the solar system ’s creation billions of days ago , the team is hope that , by studying the ways in which the comet changes as it approaches the sun , they ’ll be able to gain a deep understanding of how Earth itself formed .
But again , all of this is dependent on everything pass according to plan . In other words , fingers get over . [ AP , ESA , The Telegraph , Raw Story ]
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