Wii - Mario cart - How to unlock Rosetta

1 ANSWERS

1. amomipais82
   

   Hi,
   Philae is the name of the island in the River Nile where the obelisk with the hieroglyphic names of Cleopatra and Ptolemy led French historian Jean-Francois Champollion to decipher the 'Rosetta Stone' and unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt.
   
   Just as the Philae obelisk and Rosetta Stone provided the keys to an ancient civilisation, Europe's lander and spacecraft promise to unlock the mysteries of the oldest building blocks of the solar system, comets.
   
   Asteroids and comets are leftovers from the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. Comets carry clues about our origins because their chemical composition has not changed much since their formation.
   
   "Asteroids are a sort of memory or the DNA of the solar system," Rosetta project scientist Rita Schulz said at the ESA conference held following the successful flyby of asteroid Steins last weekend.
   
   Rosetta's 12-year journey began when it was launched in February 2004 using gravity-assisted flybys of the Earth and Mars to reach 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by 2014.
   
   Once in orbit around the comet, Rosetta will release a small lander onto the icy nucleus and drill into it.
   
   This is fraught with technical risks, such as those faced during the Steins flyby when Rosetta's high resolution camera failed just before the closest approach, switching back on a short time later.
   
   Rosetta has two 14m solar panels with a total area of 64 square metres and a 2.2m-diameter communications dish with a steerable antenna. The 100kg lander is attached to the opposite side of the dish and will be deployed after entering orbit around Churyumov-Gerasimenko at speeds of more than 100,000kmh.
   
   Philae will unfold its three legs and descend to the surface from an altitude of one kilometre, touching down at less than one metre a second. The legs can rotate, lift or tilt to return Philae to an upright position. Philae will then fire a harpoon to anchor it to the comet for a week, possibly longer.
   
   The Rosetta orbiter will keep its distance and observe changes in the comet as it enters the inner solar system. The heat of the sun causes ice on the comet to evaporate, often released by jets of gas blasted from its surface.
   
   David Southwood, ESA director of science and robotic exploration, said the Steins flyby was the first big step toward the exploration of asteroids and comets.
   
   "They're small but important. Our solar system grew out of things like this."

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