Rosetta - Blog Posts

An unfinished line art drawing of my #Birdsofparadise oc (Vilaris) and Eobin chatting during a class

Robin just dropped some romance lore and Vilaris is just face palming internally

Finalists for a Future Mission to Explore the Solar System

We’ve selected two finalists for a robotic mission that is planned to launch in the mid-2020s! Following a competitive peer review process, these two concepts were chosen from 12 proposals that were submitted in April under a New Frontiers program announcement opportunity.

What are they?

In no particular order…

CAESAR

CAESAR, or the Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return mission seeks to return a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – the comet that was successfully explored by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft – to determine its origin and history.

This mission would acquire a sample from the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and return it safely to Earth. 

Comets are made up of materials from ancient stars, interstellar clouds and the birth of our solar system, so the CAESAR sample could reveal how these materials contributed to the early Earth, including the origins of the Earth's oceans, and of life.

Dragonfly

A drone-like rotorcraft would be sent to explore the prebiotic chemistry and habitability of dozens of sites on Saturn’s moon Titan – one of the so-called ocean worlds in our solar system.

Unique among these Ocean Worlds, Titan has a surface rich in organic compounds and diverse environments, including those where carbon and nitrogen have interacted with water and energy.

Dragonfly would be a dual-quadcopter lander that would take advantage of the environment on Titan to fly to multiple locations, some hundreds of miles apart, to sample materials and determine surface composition to investigate Titan's organic chemistry and habitability, monitor atmospheric and surface conditions, image landforms to investigate geological processes, and perform seismic studies.

What’s Next?

The CAESAR and Dragonfly missions will receive funding through the end of 2018 to further develop and mature the concepts. It is planned that from these, one investigation will be chosen in the spring of 2019 to continue into subsequent mission phases.

That mission would be the fourth mission in the New Frontiers portfolio, which conducts principal investigator (PI)-led planetary science missions under a development cost cap of approximately $850 million. Its predecessors are the New Horizons mission to Pluto and a Kuiper Belt object, the Juno mission to Jupiter and OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with and return a sample of the asteroid Bennu. 

Key Technologies

We also announced that two mission concepts were chosen to receive technology development funds to prepare them for future mission opportunities.

The Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH) mission concept will receive funds to enable life detection measurements by developing cost-effective techniques to limit spacecraft contamination on cost-capped missions.

The Venus In situ Composition Investigations (VICI) mission concept will further develop the VEMCam instrument to operate under harsh conditions on Venus. The instrument uses lasers on a lander to measure the mineralogy and elemental composition of rocks on the surface of Venus.

The call for these mission concepts occurred in April and was limited to six mission themes: comet surface sample return, lunar south pole-Aitken Basin sample return, ocean worlds, Saturn probe, Trojan asteroid tour and rendezvous and Venus insitu explorer.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com. 

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Learn all about the end of the Rosetta Mission and more about the weather on Mars, the Moon’s colorful palette.

1. Rosetta’s Last Dance

The Rosetta mission was one of firsts: the first to orbit a comet and the first to dispatch a lander to a comet's surface. Rosetta transformed our understanding of these ancient wanderers, and this week, mission controllers will command the spacecraft to execute a series of maneuvers to bring it out of orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Watch live on Sept. 30 from 6:15-8 a.m. EDT, the Rosetta mission's 12-year odyssey in space reaches its conclusion. Rosetta will descend to make a planned impact on the comet’s surface with its instruments recording science data during descent.

+Watch live as Rosetta crash lands on NASA TV, recording data along the way

+More on the mission’s final descent

+Mission highlights

2.  Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa

On Monday, Sept. 26, our scientists announced what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapor plumes.

+Learn the latest on Europa

3. Not So Impossible After All

Scientists have found an "impossible" ice cloud on Saturn's moon Titan. The puzzling appearance of an ice cloud prompted our researchers to suggest that a different process than previously thought could be forming clouds on Titan. The process may be similar to one seen over Earth's poles. Today, the Cassini spacecraft will perform a targeted Titan flyby, skimming just 1,079 miles (1,736 kilometers) above its hazy surface. Several of Cassini's instruments will be watching for clouds and other phenomena in the atmosphere, as well as taking measurements of the surface.

+Learn more about Titan’s clouds

4. Lunar Intrigue

Earth's moon is a colorless world of grays and whites, right? Not really. As seen in these images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, some landscapes on the moon reveal a whole range of color. One such place is the mountainous complex of ancient lava flows known as the Lassell Massif, one of the moon's so-called "red spots."

+Take a look

5. Weather Report: Mars

A camera aboard our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter monitors global weather patterns daily. The most recent report includes the remains of a large dust storm in the Noachis region, and smaller tempests spotted along the edge of the south polar ice cap and water-ice clouds over the volcano Arsia Mons.

+ Learn more and see Mars weather videos

Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Our solar system is huge, let us break it down for you. Here are a few things to know this week:

1. Up at Jupiter, It’s Down to Business

Ever since our Juno mission entered Jupiter's orbit on July 4, engineers and scientists have been busy getting their newly arrived spacecraft ready for operations. Juno's science instruments had been turned off in the days leading up to Jupiter orbit insertion. As planned, the spacecraft powered up five instruments on July 6, and the remaining instruments should follow before the end of the month. The Juno team has also scheduled a short trajectory correction maneuver on July 13 to refine the orbit.

2. The Shadows Know

Scientists with our Dawn mission have identified permanently shadowed regions on the dwarf planet Ceres. Most of these areas likely have been cold enough to trap water ice for a billion years, suggesting that ice deposits could exist there now (as they do on the planet Mercury). Dawn is looking into it.

3. Frosts of Summer

Some dusty parts of Mars get as cold at night year-round as the planet's poles do in winter, even in regions near the equator in summer, according to new findings based on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observations. The culprit may be Mars' ever-present dust.

4. Can You Hear Me Now?

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is designed to sample an asteroid and return that sample to Earth. After launch in Sept., the mission's success will depend greatly on its communications systems with Earth to relay everything from its health and status to scientific findings from the asteroid Bennu. That's why engineers from our Deep Space Network recently spent a couple of weeks performing detailed tests of the various communications systems aboard OSIRIS-REx.

5. Cometary Close-ups

The Rosetta spacecraft has taken thousands of photographs of Comet 67/P. The European Space Agency (ESA) is now regularly releasing the highest-resolution images. The word "stunning" is used a lot when referring to pictures from space—and these ones truly are. See the latest HERE.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

The solar system is vast, and exploring it requires not one expedition, but many. From the sun to the Earth to the depths of space beyond Pluto, an entire fleet of spacecraft is pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. Scientists and engineers around the world work together on dozens of missions, and the results of their work unfold on a daily basis. During any given week, astronauts and robotic spacecraft return thousands of pictures and other data from Earth orbit and from half a dozen other worlds.

The result? It’s nothing short of a visual and intellectual feast. For example, all of the following images were obtained over the course of one week during January this year.

The same missions that took these pictures are still at work – they may be photographing Saturn or transmitting a report from Mars as you read this.

1. The Sun

From its clear vantage point in Earth orbit, our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observes our nearby star almost continuously. This image shows activity on the sun’s surface on Jan. 18. You can also get similar pictures from SDO daily!

2. The Earth from Afar

The DSCOVR satellite orbits the Earth at a distance of nearly a million miles (1.5 million kilometers). It’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) keeps a steady watch on the home planet. This is how the world turned on Jan. 20. Get the latest daily images from EPIC HERE.

3. Mars from Above

The team that manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) recently celebrated a decade of observing the Red Planet. MRO took this detailed look at dunes and rocky buttes in Danielson Crater on Jan. 24. It was 3:06 p.m., local Mars time. On the right stide of the image, dust devils have left tracks in the sand.

4. Comet 67/P

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe caught this look at the surface of Comet 67/P from a distance of just 46 miles (75 kilometers) on Jan. 23.

5. Saturn

On the same day (Jan. 23), our Cassini spacecraft continued its odyssey of nearly two decades in space, bringing us this look at the sixth planet. See the latest images from Cassini HERE.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

https://www.tumblr.com/lunchablejuicebox/766815206207864832/1777620020-ocs-sorta-ok-so-yeah-can-we?source=share

a hhhhhumble request to hear more about philae... and rosetta..... <- IS rosetta and wants to hear about his kid

AH MY FIRST ASK!!

ughhh i’d love to talk more about them so much but i’ve been putting off this project for a while..sigh…

but i can share what i can as of now! (mostly ramblingsssz)

“Didn’t they crash into 67P??”

yes, yes they did.

But i feel like that never stopped them from communicating with eachother after that rather than the ESA.

The comet does get exposure to the sun from time to time, and i’d assume that they would recharge during that.

“But crashing would demolish their systems!!”

I bend the truths for the story guys just believe.

Anyways

i feel like Philae would feel bad about not executing the landing correctly, but in truth, it’s not their fault. So Rosetta would remind Philae about this when they bring it up.

but OH THE JOY AND RELIEF Rosetta must’ve felt when Philae was spotted

like

“hiii !!

hello !!

i’m alive !!!”

Their contact with the other satellites and probes is probably pretty strong considering their proximity to the solar system compared to the Voyagers or Pioneers.

But for Philae, i’m not quite sure since they are wedged in the rocks and stuck in the shadow of a cliff. That may be an issue when recharging so i’m sure they are careful when sending messages to conserve their battery.

im unsure of what kind of entertainment they’d watch, but i feel like they would tune into anything really.

but the commentary from the both of them would be superb i can just tell

thank you so much for the ask, and hopefully i provided an alright tidbit for them, but i hope to expand on this in the future!

Http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/Philae_close-up Today is my 21st Birthday and ESA found philae for me!

My sibling and I just watched Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy and we came up with a bunch of sexuality and dating headcannons based on it. The conversation was very funny so I thought I would share our final consensus on this.

Sexualities

Tinker Bell : Pansexual

Get it? Because of Peter Pan. Tink just doesn’t really care. She has always done her own thing and that also applies to who she likes.

Silvermist: Bisexual

I originally thought of her as a lesbian, but her outfit in the Pirate Fairy was the Bi flag colors so she has to be Bi. I think she is a huge disaster bisexual, but is also denser than a brick. You could scream that you are in love with her and she will not get it.

Iridessa: Queer

She definitely isn’t straight. But neither of us can figure out what her sexuality is. We like to think that Iridessa identifies as queer because trying to commit to a single label gives her too much anxiety.

Fawn: Lesbian Asexual Gender Non Conforming

Look at this girl and tell me she doesn’t like girls! I dare you! I just can’t see her dating men at all. As for asexual we decided to use it as an umbrella term. I’m not sure where she lands on the spectrum. She definitely isn’t sex repulsed though. Also I think Fawn identifies as a girl but that doesn’t really mean anything to her. She sometimes uses they/them but very rarely.

Vidia: Lesbian

This girl gives mean lesbian vibes and we all know it. Also she has definitely kissed everyone in the main friend group at least once.

Rosetta: Bi-curious and Trans mtf

To my sibling she gives off huge trans girl vibes and I can definitely see it. I feel like it didn’t take long for her to transition after being born in Pixie Hallow. Maybe a couple months. A year tops. When she did come out everyone was like “Finally! She transitioned!” As for her being Bi-curious we think that she genuinely didn’t realize that girls were an option. It took two of the girls in the friend group dating for Rosetta to realize that she could date girls, and that she her completely normal thoughts about her friends were not as platonic as she thought. I like to think Fawn helped her figure some stuff out. But she does still like men and probably prefers them, even if only slightly. She is still with her boyfriend Sled.

Couples

So we came to the conclusion that Tink and Vidia dated for a bit, but broke up. No one really knows this because they kept it quiet since they have the same friend group and didn’t want things to be awkward if it didn’t work out. In the end the two are just not compatible romantically. Their tempers were the main reason. They joke about it now though.

We came to the conclusion that Tinker and Terence eventually do date. They are both polyamorous and are looking for a third, but no one seems interested.

Silvermist and Fawn are two dumbasses in a pod. They get into so much shit together. They love each other and have no shame.

Finally when watching the Pirate Fairy we noticed that Vidia was usually the one calming down Iridessa when she was having an anxiety attack and it was cute. I actually think they were the first of the friend group to start dating, but were very low key about it. When everyone found out Silvermist and Fawn started dating everyone said that they were the first of the friend group to start dating each other and Vidia just looked at everyone and stated that she and Iridessa had been dating for over a year. Everyone freaked out.

Extras:

Periwinkle: AroAce

Girl thinks she is Pansexual like her sister because she feels the same about everyone. But she doesn’t realize that the feeling is platonic and lack of romantic and sexual interest.

Bobble: Gay Trans ftm

According to my sibling this man is too much of a twink to not be trans. Also this man is totally married to Clank and you can’t tell me other wise.

Clank: Gay

Like I said he and Bobble are married and that’s that.

Queen Clarion: Bisexual

I don’t know. She gives off mom bisexual vibes. I actually think she might have a slight preference for girls. She is madly in love with her boyfriend though.

Fairy Mary: Lesbian

She totally had a huge crush on Queen Clarion, but never pursued it because she could tell that Queen Clarion was not mentally ready for a relationship even if she didn’t know why.

Zarina: Bisexual

This girl is definitely not straight. I feel like she might be interested in being the third that Tink and Terence are looking for idk.

Terence: Just Ken

He is either the straightest dude bro ally in history or he’s Bi. There is no in between.