Spacecraft Rosetta roused from slumber on comet-chasing quest (BLOG)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRH_pBctT88u3TRnl0B456juoAKUaxiN46BNkyPfhMp_j4gNnjC0dbyf980070XSWhwfcxHX2njI2-WhW_uhychRv7n03l9VsqiiYa9RTgpBE1MQoEmLQOe921vQ-fq7iXYcN4bEJQL-g/s1600/2014-01-20T193006Z_1853133545_GM1EA1L09JE01_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-COMET-ROSETTA.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRH_pBctT88u3TRnl0B456juoAKUaxiN46BNkyPfhMp_j4gNnjC0dbyf980070XSWhwfcxHX2njI2-WhW_uhychRv7n03l9VsqiiYa9RTgpBE1MQoEmLQOe921vQ-fq7iXYcN4bEJQL-g/s1600/2014-01-20T193006Z_1853133545_GM1EA1L09JE01_RTRMADP_3_SPACE-COMET-ROSETTA.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390361308186_20713" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">By Maria Sheahan</div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390361308186_20733" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Rosetta, which was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2004, is due to rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and land a probe on it this year in an unprecedented maneuver.FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta woke from nearly three years of hibernation on Monday to complete a decade-long deep space mission that scientists hope will help unlock some of the secrets of the solar system.</div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390361308186_20752" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Scientists hope data the probe gathers will allow them to peek into a kind of astronomical time capsule that has preserved for millions of years clues as to what the world looked like when our solar system was born.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">"Since comets are so primitive, they can give scientists a chance to understand how the solar system formed, where it came from," Rosetta spacecraft operations manager Andrea Accomazzo told Reuters ahead of the wake-up call.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">On its way to the comet, a roughly 3 by 5 km-large rock discovered in 1969, Rosetta has been circling the sun on a widening spiral course, swinging past Earth and Mars to pick up speed and adjust its trajectory.</div><div class="body-related" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; position: relative;"><a class="body-related-link body-related-slideshow go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize " data-list-id="c1eccbf0-829b-11e3-b7ab-5048d464b7b4" data-rapid_p="8" data-type="slideshow" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/the-european-space-agency-comet-probe-rosetta-slideshow/" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="The European Space Agency comet probe Rosetta"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;"><div class="cta-overlay" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.24s linear; font-size: 13px; height: 213px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: background-color 0.24s linear; width: 300px;"><span class="clearfix title cta-text medium" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; color: white; font-size: 16px; left: 5px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; top: 5px; transition: opacity 0.24s linear; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 270px; zoom: 1;"></span><span class="cta-text xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; bottom: 5px; color: white; font-size: 16px; margin-left: 42px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.24s linear;">View gallery</span><span class="icon-slideshow icon-white-slideshow-xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.16s linear; background-color: #324fe1; background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; bottom: 5px; cursor: pointer; height: 23px; left: 5px; line-height: 0; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-indent: -1000em; transition: opacity 0.16s linear; width: 32px; z-index: 1;"></span></div><img alt="The European Space Agency comet probe Rosetta" class="body-related-thumb" data-src-2x="" height="213" src="http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/jikvWlcZBrRodheSGLy2zw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTIxMztxPTc1O3c9MzAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/e8f05e8bd21f6d02490f6a706700f1e0.jpg" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; display: block; opacity: 1 !important; transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; vertical-align: baseline; visibility: visible !important;" width="300" /></div></a><div class="body-related-title photo-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: grey; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.5px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px; position: relative; width: 300px;">FILE - This undated image provided by the European Space Agency ESA shows an artist's impression …</div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">The mission will perform several historical firsts, including the first time a spacecraft orbits a comet rather than just whizzing by it to snap some fly-by pictures, and the first time a probe has landed on a comet's nucleus.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Rosetta is also the first mission to venture beyond the main asteroid belt relying solely on solar cells for power generation, which is also why it had to be put into a deep sleep for 957 days.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">"It has been so far away from the sun that the solar rays were not able to generate enough energy to safely operate the spacecraft," said Accomazzo, who has been working on the Rosetta mission since 1997.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Accomazzo is based at the ESA's satellite operations in the German town of Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Having neared the sun again as it tracks the comet on its elliptical orbit around the sun, Rosetta was gently awakened by its internal alarm clock at 1000 GMT on Monday. It then warmed up its systems and transmitted a sign of life - a radio signal - to its creators on Earth.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Once it is fully up and running, it will start to approach the comet. By August, it should catch up with it and land its probe on it in November.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Until the end of 2015, the probe will gather data on the comet's surface and examine how it changes as its nears the sun.</div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390361308186_20764" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">(Additional reporting by Annika Breidthardt; Editing by Gareth Jones and Pravin Char)</div></div>

Spacecraft Rosetta roused from slumber on comet-chasing quest (BLOG)

By Maria Sheahan Rosetta, which was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2004, is due to rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Geras...

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