Early
afternoon. Almost time to take your pill. You suddenly realize your right thumb
is not fully functioning above the keyboard due to severe arthritis. – Amorella
1347 hours. I can make due.
Carol and Kim are downstairs working on Thanksgiving salads and desserts. I am
in the boys’ playroom sitting of the rocker. Yesterday was wonderful, our
anniversary present was sleeping in the bed Kim and Paul have in the room and
bathroom they created for us on the first floor of their new house. We are
happy they are content with their lives. What more could parents wish for than
contentment (at this time in their and our lives) for their children and
grandchildren? I love their house and all they have done with it in the last
few weeks. We ate at Logan’s near Dublin last night. Good food as well as
family time. Paul now has Direct TV and had copied 2001 Space Odyssey. I
watched it this morning after Carol and Kim left early with the boys, went
shopping and brought me back two doughnuts from Schneider’s in Westerville for
a late breakfast snack. No lunch for me. More BBC News on the comet:
** **
26 November
2014 Last updated
at 08:46 ET
“Comet
landing: UK team's data bonanza from Philae”
By Pallab
Ghosh, Science correspondent, BBC News
Scientists
say they detected what might be complex carbon compounds on the surface of the
comet the craft landed on two weeks ago.
The results
are from the Ptolemy instrument, which is a miniaturised on-board laboratory.
The
detection of carbon supports a view that comets may have brought key chemicals
to Earth to kick-start life.
The team
leader, Prof Ian Wright, told BBC News: "We can say with absolute
certainty that we saw a very large signal of what are basically organic
(carbon) compounds.
"There
is a rich signal there. It is not simple. It is not like there are two
compounds; there are clearly a lot of things there - a lot of peaks. Sometimes
a complicated compound can give a lot of peaks."
The
"peaks" refer to the graph produced by the Ptolemy instrument of the
different molecules it detected. The result is in line with initial
observations made by a similar German-led instrument on Philae.
In an
exclusive interview with BBC News, Prof Wright explained that Ptolemy had
gathered huge amounts of scientific data. Normally a quiet, understated man, he
was marginally better at containing his enthusiasm than his co-worker and wife,
Prof Monica Grady, who jumped for and then wept with joy and
relief when Philae landed.
Prof Wright told me: "I am as
excited now as I was a couple of weeks ago. It's tremendous!"
"For
years, I've been giving public lectures about what we plan to do. Now we have
some data and it's: Wow! This is what scientists do this stuff for."
Much of the
data gathered by Ptolemy was collected on the fly. Shortly after the Rosetta
spacecraft was activated in January, Prof Wright and his team saw the
opportunity to analyse the comet's tail as the spacecraft approached.
"It is
not something we had planned to do, but it became obvious that it was something
we could do."
The early
data suggests that the composition of the gases changed as the spacecraft got
closer to the comet.
Prof Wright
also explained that Philae's bouncy landing suited his experiment. Among
Ptolemy's capabilities is the ability to analyse gases and particles around it,
and so it was pre-programmed to sniff its environment shortly after landing.
Pictures from Rosetta show that the
first landing created a dust cloud, providing Ptolemy with a feast of data. But Philae's
bouncy landing and eventual resting place in the shade meant that it would not
be able to recharge its solar powered batteries. The Ptolemy team had a few
hours to rethink its scientific programme and upload a much curtailed set of
experiments to the instrument.
Fuelled by
the drama of the landing, and feeling the weight of history on their shoulders,
all the various Philae instrument teams spent the night feverishly working to
make the best use of the precious few days of operating life that the lander
had left.
The hardest moment for the Philae
team was having to abandon plans to analyse material drilled from underneath
the comet's surface. Overall, programme managers deemed that there was only
sufficient battery power to drill for one sample, rather than two as was
originally planned. A collective decision was therefore made that any sample
should be analysed by the German-led COSAC instrument - not Ptolemy.
It is
unclear whether the drill successfully managed to get a sample to COSAC. But mission
planners did grant the UK team Philae's last ounce of strength to operate
Ptolemy's oven, to heat up all the debris that had collected inside the
instrument to 200C and analyse the gases that came off.
Prof Wright
confirms that this experiment was successfully carried out and that the results
could give an indication of the composition of the carbon and nitrogen on the
comet. These results may in turn help piece together what happened in the early
years of the Solar System when the planets were forming.
The team
wishes that Ptolemy could have carried out its full mission, but Prof Wright
says the group is delighted with the results it has obtained. It also has the
optimistic possibility of Philae coming back to life in the weeks ahead as the
comet moves closer to the Sun and lighting conditions improve at the landing
site.
"If you ask me whether we have
done all we could have done, the answer is 'no'. But I remain optimistic that
the thing may come back to life and we will get the chance to do those
things," he said.
Selected and edited from – BBC News,
26 November 2014
** **
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