Some more info here: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1937.pdf

and: http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/31445-instruments/?fbodylongid=89...

The instrument has its own Twitter feed, of course: https://twitter.com/philae_ptolemy

https://twitter.com/erichand/status/534413817040867328

Edit: Changed Rosetta to COSAC.

http://www.mps.mpg.de/1979406/COSAC

It is also a GC-MS, but rather than an ion trap, it is a time-of-flight analyzer with a much higher mass range (up to 1500 Da in the widest mode). It is neat to have two mass specs on a single relatively small probe. They are intended to be complementary, as discussed here (briefly, PTOLEMY is designed to measure isotope ratios and the COSAC TOF is designed for organics as it can measure chirality with dual GC columns, and also with a much higher mass range):

ftp://ftp.iwf.oeaw.ac.at/pub/schwingenschuh/ROSETTA_Konrad/Lander/ulamec2007-pdf-Capabilities%20of%20Philae,%20the%20Rosetta%20Lander%20-space-science-rev.pdf

[edit: for anyone else interested in mass-spec, I found some slides with an overview of MS instruments on previous probes - I was familiar with several, but there have been many more than I realized: http://jfsm2012.sciencesconf.org/conference/jfsm2012/pages/C...]

http://sandwalk.blogspot.ca/2011/11/nasa-confusion-about-ori...

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2009/04/can-watery-asteroids-ex...

Two problems with the 'organic asteroid' theory are the 'racemization problem' (how to explain why life only uses L isomers rather than both the L and D isomers present in meteorites), and the fact that the amount of organic matter in meteors is tiny. Compare that to the opportunities for life to arise on earth in its diverse chemical environments.

See the calculations by Jeffrey Bada discussed in the second link.

Of course, having the reverse isomer molecules would be advantageous against predators (who couldn't digest it) and a boon to natural selection.

Like I said, plenty of speculation to be had.

This, of course, doesn't really mean much. Something being advantageous doesn't imply that it must show up as a product of natural selection nor does it imply that such an adaptation must survive into perpetuity.

There is absolutely no evidence for it and it is not meant to be taken as as serious as some of you are taking it. If anything, it proves there is too much speculation -_-

Only until your species divergently evolves and one of the descendent species evolves into predators. Then it's game on again!

Then again, if reverse isomers = indigestible, what is your species going to eat? I suppose this strategy might work for plants.

Why would the reserve isomer not be digestible? The human body can metabolism racemic amino acids.

Evolution is directionless and unguided. It's not like a startup, under the guidance of humans, pivoting for a niche market.

But historically, when one aspect of the ecosystem goes unchecked, something usually comes along to take advantage of plentiful biomass, one notable exception being humans.

If there's a world of untapped food, this exceptionally rare behaviour would rapidly become advantageous, especially when the prey isn't adapted to the unusual predator.

Evolution has no guide, but all evidence shows it evolves into almost every available niche and quite specifically that any large available resource will be tapped.

Again, evolution is still unguided and to assume that something will evolve into an open niche is a gambler's fallacy.

Convergent evolution, and history argue against you. C4 photosynthesis evolved independently 60 times. There's no guarantee it will, and I'm not arguing it will. However, the weight of evidence argues that if there's a readily available niche it is a matter of time.

If you argue I won't win the jackpot, you're likely right - in fact I'd put money on my probability of losing. However, if you argue no one will win the jackpot in the next 100 years you're an idiot.

Quit projecting and just stop already, electromagnetic. You can't even bow out and admit you're wrong gracefully, so you skip straight to name calling.

Bravo.

I didn't intend to refer to you personally as an idiot, but turing a phrase however that appears very lost on you.

I'm certain you're just intentionally being a troll, because you're unwilling to make a single basis of an argument or even support your reasoning and can't even use your terms correctly, and now you're attempting to bait me with condescension.

I also eat plenty of insoluble dietary fibre.

Prey animals would need to signal their non digestability to their predators.

Animals without predators would overwhelm the biome.

Disease is a predator.

- It is analagous to eating raw grass.

- It is not analgous to eating processed/cooked grains, hence it is non-sequitur.

- It is a matter of biochemistry, not culinary arts.

I gave the original speculation as an example of there being too much speculation around abiogenesis and evolution. This discussion proves it.

> 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.

This is the first I've heard that Philae can wake back up. I was under the impression that it had no solar capabilities whatsoever, and that the battery was the only power it had available.

Mattias Malmer corrected the perspective [0] and I threw it in my JS pano viewer. [1] It helps to visualize where it's sitting.

[0] http://mattias.malmer.nu/2014/11/philae-final-landing-place/ [1] http://robotrising.org/StratoSphere/index.html?src=images/ph...

If the direct output power of the nuclear battery was too low, it could still be used to charge the rechargeable battery until it can make the lander do work again for a few hours/days.

There's some problem with Tritium expose if the craft exploded on launch but those haven't really stopped it usage.

Thankfully it appears that the united states department of energy is re-visiting generating plutonium-238 for NASA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238#United_States_sup...

I can't link the source but it was a tweet.

Not every launch makes it to space.

Planetary Society blogger Emily Lakdawalla has a Tumblr that had very good coverage of what went on: http://elakdawalla.tumblr.com/ ... details of the movement, the solar charging requirements etc

article: ". 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."

Ms Lakdawalla's post provided more detail, including confirmation they got feedback from the lander that its movement was successful, although it wasn't clear if they were going to actually get enough light any time soon for full operations (thanks for that hint):

" They commanded the lander legs to lift the body by 4 centimeters, hopefully raising it a bit farther above the horizon, and then rotating the lander body 35 degrees to place the largest solar panel in a position where it could hopefully receive the most sunlight. Telemetry confirmed that the lander moved as it had been commanded to do. "

I feel like there is a big difference between finding methane and finding amino acids on the comet. Surely, finding methane isn't all that interesting.

For example, you can read:

In dirty ice like comets: http://www.astrochem.org/sci/Amino_Acids.php

In interestelar clouds: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2003/aug/11/amino-a...

All life we have discovered on earth is based on carbon. So, finding these building blocks of life in space is interesting because it is solid proof you don't need to be on earth to produce them (something that might or might not seem intuitively obvious but in science you can't use intuition as proof, only as a guide). However, while making it a tiny bit more likely, it does not mean anything is alive out there.

Do they have an estimate of when it will be destroyed because it's too close to the sun?

But that does not mean all comets survive their close approach to the Sun. Some, such as the sungrazing comets[0], come quite close to the surface and can be destroyed by their encounters with the Sun.

As jnevill points out, this particular comet's orbit does not take it closer to the Sun than the Earth's distance from the Sun. The comet is on a ~6yr orbit, I believe, and so should survive for a long period of time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungrazing_comet

But then I saw it was published on a ".de" website. You can expect it's targeted at a german audience, who naturally feels interested in knowing which part their country played into this (mentioning others just after wouldn't have hurt, though).

Edit: I opened the article in private mode in both Google Chrome and Firefox browsers so it cannot be related to browser's cache.

Tried other news articles from WSJ website, got the same result i.e. they worked with Google Chrome but not with Firefox browser.

In this case I don't mind an article that has a bit more science bias rather than 'mainstream', so the DLR link is nice.

Just to confirm you've personally paid for access to this content?

I subscribe to The Economist, and occasionally buy access to the Financial Times.

Besides, paywalls aren't hard to circumvent. Someone usually posts a redirect within minutes of these articles' being linked here.

For a news website you would hope they do, otherwise their marketing dept isn't doing a very good job.

As I've stated in a comment further down this tree, I don't like paywalls. I think they're an inefficient and suboptimal means of monetizing content. A paywall is basically a tax on readers who aren't savvy enough to bypass it. If you look at the economics of a paywall, it's basically monetizing the intersection of two sets of people: 1) the set of all people who really want to read the WSJ, and 2) the set of all people who can't get around a paywall when they encounter one. This intersection cohort -- call it "People who like WSJ and can't navigate paywalls" -- is probably a decent size, but it leaves a lot of would-be customers on the table. At the same time, the paywall hampers distribution and creates a bad user experience. It's an unsophisticated way to monetize content. That said, I don't find it "absurd." Bad, sure. Annoying, absolutely. "Absurd," no. Nor do I find absurdity in the premise that the WSJ should attempt to monetize its content.

The cost of the restroom visit is, in a sense, folded into the cost of the meal. That is why many restaurants only allow paying customers to use the restrooms.

That's a false dichotomy. Websites for major news outlets have always been overwhelming "free" (as in, not behind a paywall, but they obviously try to monetize through ads).

Have you never attempted to read original scientific papers? Most are hidden behind paywalls. Search for yourself - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/