by Matthew Cobb
Earlier today, to mark May the Fourth, the European Space Agency released this photo of comet 67P taken by the Rosetta probe with, somewhere on its surface, the tiny Philae lander (you’ll never spot it). The answer is already out there, so no cheating! Genuine spots only in the comments, please. Click to embiggen comme d’hab. We’ll post the answer later. Note that in a few months, Rosetta will be no more, for it will make a final, catastrophic approach to the comet and the mission will be over.
I assume it is in the dark valley in the lower left. You can see where Rosetta is here:
http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/
Or maybe in the dark patch on the lower right.
Middle left, just below shadow of the big rock – no, I have nothing better to do with my morning.
Picture,
https://plus.google.com/102966194877062617407/posts/1BYdy5s6cB6
Far right just above center?
To the right of center, below the left side of the while ridge. Below the smooth are.
Are = area
Never mind the lander — who knew that there were entire colonies of nightjars in space!?
b&
What? Not stonefish?
That’s not a stonefish…it’s a mimic octopus. We’ve known about their space colonization program for ages.
b&
>
Not even when embiggened and using a magnifying glass. I swear I had great eyesight 30 years ago.
Being a teeny bit pedantic, the lander is not *on* the surface in this photo, it is drifting down towards the landing, so is projected against the surface. The final location of the lander is not known.
sub
I can’t click on it to enlarge it. Tried with two different browsers — Firefox and Chrome. Anybody else manage?
Had to put in in a photo viewer.
In Chrome, right click and choose “Open image in new tab”. It appears that Matt neglected to include the embiggen link.
I was able to embiggen (word created on the Simpsons) on my iPhone Chrome with 2 finger separate.
Quick question: Are there any modern satellite photos of the site of the lunar landing showing the stuff left there nearly a half a century ago?
Let me google that for you.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html
a fraction more than halfway down and 25% in from the left edge of picture just below and left of a big flattish rock.
I can see exactly the point you describe. Just that close inspection doesn’t reveal any lander in it.
I don’t suppose it has moved since you posted your comment?
cr
I think, technically, that is a colony of goatsuckers, not nightjars.
That sounded suspiciously like a goatse.cx joke. (Part of the joke being that goatse are now a respectable email provider. Well, relatively respectable.
Well, I’m stumped. I suppose it isn’t cheating by lurking in a shadow?
I had to google (no cheating) to see what it looked like – just a big rectangular box with legs. Then I blew up the pic till the resolution started to go fuzzy and scrolled across it bit by bit. Still no joy. Lotsa boxy-shaped rocks.
I assume that the lander, when found, will look like a lander and not an approximately-lander-shaped rock?
cr