The ship ‘Rosetta’ will explore the origin of water on Earth … – The País.com (Spain)

id=”cuerpo_noticia”> How is the structure and composition of the nucleus of a comet? Did you bring the water to make the planet Earth? Could they also bring the precursor molecules of life? How does the activity of comets work when close to the Sun? These are the fundamental questions that seeks to answer the Rosetta spacecraft , the European Space Agency (ESA) , summarizes Laurence O’Rourke, coordinator of scientific mission operations. And his colleague Michael Kueppers adds that “comets are made of the same material that formed the plan, but raw, so studying them can learn a lot about how the solar system formed.” The Rosetta , after nearly a decade of traveling from that left Earth, is already nearing its final destination, the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko currently about 600 million kilometers from the Sun The meeting is scheduled for next August 6th.

Last January the ship, who had traveled for two and a half years in hibernation, with almost every team was activated off, and scientists have checked as all data collection instruments and analysis, as well as cameras, work perfectly, yesterday reported its leaders at a meeting in the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) , the ESA headquarters in Madrid, which will handle scientific mission operations.

A dozen comets and asteroids have been visited and satellite recalled Kueppers. But Rosetta will be the first probe to orbit the nucleus of one of these celestial objects and accompany him on his journey to the vicinity of the Sun carries cameras with a resolution of 10 centimeters and instruments (11 in probe and 10 at the Philae lander ) for direct investigation of the comet. Data 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko water composition (Comets are balls of ice, rock and dust fragments) should help understand their relationship to the water on Earth, Kueppers said. “It might even bring comets molecules formed life … it is a hypothesis,” he added. “Rosetta will also help interpret the data we have from other comets,” he said Nicolas Altobelli, mission scientist

” comets may even bring it formed molecules that life is a hypothesis … “

Throughout the month of August, once passed the various operations braking is doing these weeks to ship not be long the comet will begin a complex spatial maneuvers to go dancing closely watching 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, about four kilometers across. “We can not put the ship in orbit directly, so Rosetta will remain, at first, a little away from the comet ” said O’Rourke. Turning their engines perfectly timed moments, doing flybys will probe the target from different angles for a month. And all this at a distance from the earth such that the signals from the spacecraft, traveling at the speed of light (about 300,000 miles per second), will take 20 minutes to reach Earth.

The September 11 will ship at last comet’s orbit and later that month will be spinning around at 20 miles high, to fall to about 10 miles in mid-October. A month later even closer to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to release the Philae module that descend to the nucleus of the comet. There, this artifact hundred kilos must run at least a week with power from its battery, and then up to three months with its solar panels experts said. The landing will be decided with maps of the surface of cometary nucleus that will be done with the data you send Rosetta spacecraft from August.