kennyc wrote:

DougC wrote:

Rumraket wrote:So, any bets on what it finds?

I'mma put my money on this one: If it finds amino acids, they will be both left and right-handed. If there's an imbalance, it will be very small (~1%).

There might be small precursors of DNA or RNA, as in the nucleobases (no sugars or phosphates attached).

That's about as far as I dare stick my neck out. When will it start giving back data?

I wonder, if there is amino acids , if they have taken Jesus Christ as their personal savior?

Pulsar wrote:

mindhack wrote:My personal favorite


...This mosaic comprises four individual NAVCAM images taken from 31.8 km from the centre of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 4 November 2014.

From here

Looking for Cometary Organics

Before going into hibernation at 01:36 CET on 15 November 2014, the Philae lander was able to conduct some work using power supplied by its primary battery.

With its 10 instruments, the mini laboratory sniffed the atmosphere, drilled, hammered and studied Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko while over 500 million kilometres from Earth. After a triple landing, positioning it in a new, unplanned location, conditions were not optimal, but Philae was able to work for more than 60 hours and send the resulting data back to Earth. It was controlled and monitored from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Lander Control Center (LCC). Now, the complicated data analysis begins.

...

"I'm very confident that Philae will resume contact with us and that we will be able to operate the instruments again," says DLR Lander Project Manager Stephan Ulamec. Once the rechargeable secondary battery has been warmed by sunlight again, Philae will restart and the DLR LCC team will take their places at the control consoles again. "At the first landing site, we would, of course, have had better solar illumination conditions," says Ulamec. "Now we are somewhat in shadow, we will need more time to charge." One advantage of the shadier landing site in a crater is that the Philae lander will not overheat as quickly as the comet approaches the Sun, but will benefit from the stronger sunlight. The team managed to rotate the lander during the night of 14/15 November 2014, so that the largest solar panel is now aligned towards the Sun.

Contact in the coming year

Stephan Ulamec believes it is probable that in the spring of 2015, the DLR LCC will once again communicate with Philae and receive data about how the lander is faring on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In the summer of 2015, it might be possible that temperatures on the comet will allow Philae's battery to be recharged. "The orbiter will continue with its overflights to receive any signals from the lander once Philae wakes up from hibernation."

Onyx8 wrote:Honestly now, because I likely don't know, but doesn't the entire surface ablate, which would include both Rosetta and the lander? What was the mission expectation on that?