Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: November 22, 2015

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REAL LIFE NEWS: WHAT WENT WRONG WITH PHILAE

by Hazed

One year ago, the Philae lander touched down on its target, comet 67P – and then it bounced, several times, before fetching up under a cliff.

The European Space Agency has released a video showing its chaotic landing. It’s been pieced together from all of the data recorded by Philae’s sensors and instruments. You can watch the video at the source link below.

Scientists actually learned a lot from the problems with the landing, as Jens Biele, lead author of one of the scientific papers about the comet, explained: “With hindsight, one year later, and watching the movie, I am astonished how lucky we were. But we learned a lot about the surface mechanical properties from these bounces, and Philae finally landed in an interesting terrain where we would have never dared to land in the first place.”

Source: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/11/12/reconstructing-philaes-flight-across-the-comet/

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