UPDATE: We found a livestream from the ESA, so watch for Rosetta’s call in the above video right here.
How are you spending your federal bank holiday? If you’re just lying around on your couch watching Sleepy Hollow, then cut it out, ya dummy! You could be participating in space history! That’s literally the best kind of history!
After being placed in hibernation for nearly three years during its journey around Jupiter, unmanned spacecraft Rosetta is programmed to “wake up” today in preparation to finally fulfill the objective of its ten-year mission and land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Rosetta’s mission goal of attaching itself to a comet during a close orbit of the sun is unprecedented, but if successful, it will give us volumes of information about the composition of comets and the origins of the Universe. Says Barry Kellet of the European Space Agency (ESA), if Rosetta is successful, “the question of where life came from might be better answered than before.”
That’s assuming, of course, that Rosetta has survived its epic three-year nap intact.
As Paolo Ferri, Head of Missions Operations for the ESA, says, “There is a possibility that we’re not going to hear anything. Two-and-a-half years are a long time. We’re talking about sophisticated electronics and mechanics. We’ve taken all possible precautions for this not to happen but of course we cannot exclude that problems may have happened.”
Rosetta’s alarm was scheduled to go off at 5 am EST this morning (although she probably hit snooze a bunch, say funny Dads everywhere), and today we will wait nervously for a transmission back to Earth. In the meantime, the ESA has enlisted those of us who are earth-bound for help in bringing the sleeping spacecraft back to life to fulfill its destiny.
Everyone is encouraged to help “wake up” Rosetta through Facebook.The top ten entries will be beamed into space, and the winner will be invited to join the ESA in watching Rosetta make its comet landing later this year — assuming, that is, the good ship is still out there.
So what are you waiting for? Earthlings everywhere are united together as we wait for Rosetta to call, so take your pajamas off and care! This is the future of humankind, and you have nothing better to do today anyway.
(via Fox News, image via Galileo gallery)
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