പാക്ക് നീക്കങ്ങളെല്ലാം ഇവിടെ 

ലൈവ്, ചോർത്തുന്നത് ഐഎസ്ആർഒ ഉപഗ്രഹങ്ങൾ!

ഇന്ത്യൻ അതിർത്തിക്കപ്പുറത്ത് പാക്കിസ്ഥാനിൽ നിന്നുള്ള എല്ലാ വിവരങ്ങളും നീക്കങ്ങളും കൃത്യസമയത്ത് എത്തിക്കുന്നത് സൈനിക ഉപഗ്രഹങ്ങളാണെന്ന് ഐഎസ്ആർഒ വക്താവ്. പാക്ക് സേനകളുടെയും ഭീകരരുടെയും നീക്കങ്ങൾ ഉപഗ്രഹങ്ങൾ തല്‍സമയം പകർത്തി രാപകലില്ലാതെ ഇന്ത്യൻ സൈന്യത്തിനു എത്തിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്‍‍‍‍.‍ 

പിഒകെയിൽ നിന്നുള്ള എല്ലാ വിവരങ്ങളും ചിത്രങ്ങളും സൈന്യത്തിനു കൈമാറുന്നുണ്ട്. എന്നാൽ എന്തെല്ലാം കൈമാറുന്നുണ്ടെന്ന വിവരം ഔദ്യോഗിക വെളിപ്പെടുത്തൽ നടത്താനാകില്ലെന്നും അദ്ദേഹം പറഞ്ഞു. സൈനികാവശ്യങ്ങൾക്കായുള്ള കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ് ആണ് വിവരങ്ങള്‍ കൈമാറുന്നത്. കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്-2എ നേരത്തെ തന്നെ വിജയകരമായി പ്രവർത്തിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്. കാ‌ർട്ടോസാറ്റ് 2സി ഈ വർഷമാണ് വിക്ഷേപിച്ചത്. 

സൈനിക ഉപഗ്രഹങ്ങൾ പ്രവർത്തനം തുടങ്ങിയതോടെ സൈനികാവശ്യത്തിനു ഉപഗ്രഹത്തെ ആശ്രയിക്കുന്ന ചൈനയോടും അമേരിക്കയോടും കിടപിടിക്കാൻ ഇന്ത്യക്ക് സാധിച്ചിരിക്കുകയാണ്. ബഹിരാകാശത്തു നിലവിലുള്ളതിൽ ഏറ്റവും മികച്ച സൈനിക ഉപഗ്രഹങ്ങളിലൊന്നാണ് കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്-2സി.

മറ്റു രാജ്യങ്ങളിൽ നിന്നുളള മിസൈൽ ആക്രമണങ്ങളെ മുൻകൂട്ടി അറിയിക്കാനും ഈ ഉപഗ്രഹങ്ങൾക്ക് സാധിക്കും. മിസൈൽ വിക്ഷേപിക്കാനും നേരിടാനും കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്–2എ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്. കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്–2സി നിന്നു ലഭിക്കുന്നത് മികവാര്‍ന്ന ചിത്രങ്ങളും വിഡിയോയുമായാണ്. ഈ വിഡിയോകളും ചിത്രങ്ങളും നിരീക്ഷിച്ചാണ് പാക്കിസ്ഥാന്റെ ഓരോ നീക്കങ്ങളെയും സൈന്യം മുൻകൂട്ടി മനസ്സിലാക്കുന്നത്.

പാക്കിസ്ഥാനിലെ ഓരോ ഭീകരക്യാംപും ഇന്ത്യൻ സാറ്റലൈറ്റുകൾ നിരീക്ഷിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്. കഴിഞ്ഞ ദിവസത്തെ കമാൻഡോ ദൗത്യത്തിന്റെ വിഡിയോയും സാറ്റലൈറ്റ് വഴിയാണ് ഡൽഹിയിൽ എത്തിച്ചിരുന്നത്. അഹമ്മദാബാദിലെ സ്പേസ് ആപ്ലിക്കേഷൻസ് കേന്ദ്രത്തിലെ ശാസ്ത്രജ്ഞരുടെ സംഘമാണു കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്-2സി വികസിപ്പിച്ചെടുത്തത്. ബഹിരാകാശത്തു നിന്നു ഭൂമിയെ വീക്ഷിക്കുകയെന്നതാണു കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്-2സി സാറ്റലൈറ്റിന്റെ പ്രഥമ ദൗത്യം.

പ്രഥമ സൈനിക ഉപഗ്രഹം കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്-2എ 2007 ലാണ് ഇന്ത്യ വിക്ഷേപിച്ചത്. അയൽരാജ്യങ്ങൾ നടത്തുന്ന സൈനികനീക്കങ്ങളും മിസൈൽ അനുബന്ധിത പരീക്ഷണങ്ങളും രാജ്യത്തെ അറിയിക്കുന്നതിൽ ഈ ഉപഗ്രഹം നിർണായക സ്വാധീനം ചെലുത്തി വരുകയാണിപ്പോൾ. കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ് സീരിസിലെത്തുന്ന പുതിയ ഉപഗ്രഹത്തിന്റെ ദൗത്യം ഇതിന്റെ തുടർച്ചയാകുമെന്നാണ് കരുതപ്പെടുന്നത്. കൂടുതൽ മികച്ചതാണു പുതിയ ഉപഗ്രഹമെന്നും അതിനാൽ കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്-2എ ഉപഗ്രഹത്തെ അപേക്ഷിച്ച് കൂടുതൽ മികവാർന്ന പെർഫോമൻസ് പ്രതീക്ഷിക്കാമെന്നും ഐഎസ്ആർഒ ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥൻ നേരത്തെ വെളിപ്പെടുത്തിയിരുന്നു.

ഔദ്യോഗിക വിവരമനുസരിച്ച് 690 കിലോഗ്രാമാണ് ഉപഗ്രഹത്തിന്റെ ഭാരം. ശക്തിയേറിയ പാൻക്രോമറ്റിക് ക്യാമറയാണുള്ളത്. അതിനാൽ ഉയർന്ന ഗുണമേന്മയുള്ളതും വളരെ കൃത്യതയാർന്ന ചിത്രങ്ങളും വിഡിയോയും ഉപഗ്രഹം അയയ്ക്കുന്നു. പഴയ ക്യാമറയിൽ 0.8 മീറ്റർ റസലൂഷൻ ക്യാമറയാണുപയോഗിച്ചിരുന്നത്. 0.65 മീറ്റർ റസലൂഷൻ ക്യാമറയാണു പുതിയ ഉപഗ്രഹത്തിലുള്ളത്. ഇതു മൂലം ചെറിയ വസ്തുക്കളുടെ ചിത്രങ്ങളും വിഡിയോയും കൂടുതല്‍ മികവോടെ ബഹിരാകാശത്തു നിന്നു പകർത്താനാകുന്നു. 

വിഡിയോ പകർത്തുന്നതിനും ചെറിയ ഫയലുകളാക്കി ഭൂമിയിലേക്ക് അയയ്ക്കുന്നതിനും ക്യാമറയ്ക്കാകും. മറ്റ് 21 ഉപഗ്രഹങ്ങൾക്കൊപ്പമാണ് കാർട്ടോസാറ്റ്-2സി വിക്ഷേപിക്കുന്നത്. ഭൗമതലത്തിൽ നിന്ന് 200 മുതൽ 1200 കിലോമീറ്റർ അകലത്തിലുള്ള ഗ്രഹണപഥത്തിലാണ് സാറ്റലൈറ്റ് സ്ഥിതിചെയ്യുന്നത്. 

ആ യാത്ര അവസാനിച്ചു, കുഞ്ഞു 'ഫിലെ' മറഞ്ഞു!

ബഹിരാകാശത്ത് കുതിച്ചു പായുന്ന ഛിന്നഗ്രഹം. അവനെ ചുറ്റി ഭൂമിയിൽ നിന്നയച്ച ‘റോസറ്റ’ എന്ന ബഹിരാകാശ പേടകം. ഭൂമിയിൽ ജീവനുണ്ടായതെങ്ങനെയെന്നതിന്റെ രഹസ്യവും വഹിച്ചായിരുന്നു 67 പി/ ചുരിയുമോ ഗരസിമങ്കോ എന്ന ആ ധൂമകേതുവിന്റെ കറക്കം. എന്തു വില കൊടുത്താണെങ്കിലും ആ രഹസ്യം കണ്ടെത്തിയേ മതിയാകൂ. പക്ഷേ ഭൂമിയിൽ വന്നിടിച്ചാൽ മനുഷ്യരാശി ഒന്നാകെത്തന്നെ ഇല്ലാതായിപ്പോകും വിധം വലിപ്പമുള്ള ആ ഛിന്നഗ്രഹത്തിലേക്ക് ആരു പോകും? അതിനു മാത്രം ധൈര്യമുളള ആരുണ്ട്? ശാസ്ത്രം ആ ചോദ്യത്തിനു മുന്നിൽ പകച്ചു നിന്നില്ല, അവർ ഒരു ഇത്തിരിക്കുഞ്ഞനെയും റോസറ്റയ്ക്കൊപ്പം ബഹിരാകാശത്തേക്കു വിട്ടിരുന്നു. പേര് ‘ഫിലെ’. ഒരു ചെറിയ വാഷിങ് മെഷീന്റെ വലിപ്പം മാത്രമുണ്ടായിരുന്ന അവന് ഒരേയൊരു ലക്ഷ്യം മാത്രം–എന്തു വില കൊടുത്തും ധൂമകേതുവിലേക്കിറങ്ങുക, ജീവന്റെ രഹസ്യം മനസിലാക്കുക. 

അവസരം നോക്കി 2004 മുതൽ 10 വർഷത്തേക്ക് ഫിലെ റോസറ്റയ്ക്കൊപ്പം 67 പിയ്ക്കു ചുറ്റും കറങ്ങി. ഒടുവിൽ 10 വർഷത്തിനപ്പുറം 2014 നവംബറിൽ അവൻ റോസറ്റയിൽ നിന്നെടുത്തു ചാടി–നേരെ ചുരിയുമോ ഗരസിമങ്കോയിലേക്ക്. പക്ഷേ ചാട്ടമൊന്നു പിഴച്ചു. ഒരു ഇരുണ്ട കുഴിയിലാണ് വീണത്. സൂര്യപ്രകാശത്തിൽ നിന്നുള്ള ഊർജം ഉപയോഗിച്ചേ ഫിലെക്ക് പ്രവർത്തിക്കാനാകൂ. കുഴിയിലായതോടെ അതില്ലാതായി. എങ്കിലും സംഭരിച്ചു വച്ച 60 മണിക്കൂർ നേരത്തേക്കുള്ള ചാർജ് ഉപയോഗിച്ച് ഒരുവിധം കഴിഞ്ഞു കൂടി. പിന്നെ റോസറ്റയുമായുള്ള ഫിലെയുടെ അവസാന സിഗ്നൽ ബന്ധവും ഇല്ലാതായി. 

പക്ഷേ ഏഴു മാസം കഴിഞ്ഞ് 67 പി ഭ്രമണത്തിനിടെ സൂര്യന് അടുത്തെത്തിയതും ഫിലെ ഉഷാറായി. പിന്നെ ഭൂമിയിലേക്ക് വെള്ളവും ഓക്സിജനും എത്തിച്ചത് ഛിന്നഗ്രഹമാണോ എന്നറിയാനുള്ള പരിശ്രമങ്ങളായി. പൊടിയുടെയും വാതകത്തിന്റെയും സാംപിളുകളെടുത്തു. ഇടയ്ക്കിടെ 67പിയുടെ കിടിലൻ ചിത്രങ്ങളും. ആകെ മൊത്തം ഫിലെ ആളു ഹീറോയായി. അതോടെ കൊച്ചുകുട്ടികൾക്കുൾപ്പെടെ മനസിലാക്കാനാകും വിധം റോസറ്റയുടെയും കുഞ്ഞുഫിലെയുടെയും കഥ പറയാൻ ഇരുവരുടെയും പേരിൽ ഓരോ കാർട്ടൂൺ കഥാപാത്രങ്ങളെ സൃഷ്ടിക്കാൻ യൂറോപ്യൻ സ്പേസ് ഏജൻസി(ഇഎസ്എ) തീരുമാനിച്ചു. റോസെറ്റയെ ചേച്ചിയായും ഫിലെയെ കൊച്ചുസഹോദരനായും സങ്കൽപിച്ച് ഡിസൈൻ ആൻഡ് ഡേറ്റ എന്ന കമ്പനിയാണ് കാർട്ടൂൺ കഥാപാത്രങ്ങളെയുണ്ടാക്കിയത്. പിറകെ പത്രങ്ങളിൽ കാർട്ടൂണുകളും ടിവിയിൽ ആനിമേഷൻ വിഡിയോകളുമെല്ലാം ചറപറയിറങ്ങി. യൂട്യൂബിലും ട്വിറ്ററിലുമെല്ലാം ഈ ‘ശാസ്ത്രച്ചേച്ചിയും അനിയനും’ സൂപ്പർ ഹിറ്റായി. 

പക്ഷേ ഛിന്നഗ്രഹത്തിലേറിയുള്ള ഭ്രമണത്തിനിടെ സൂര്യനിൽ നിന്ന് എന്നേക്കുമായി അകന്നുപോയിരിക്കുന്നു ഫിലെ. ഐസ് വസ്തുവിൽ ഇടിച്ചാണ് റോസറ്റ മറഞ്ഞത്. ഈ മാസം 30നു റോസറ്റയുടെ 12 വർഷം നീണ്ട ദൗത്യം അവസാനിക്കുമെന്ന് നേരത്തെ റിപ്പോർട്ടുകൾ വന്നിരുന്നു. അതെ ഛിന്നഗ്രഹത്തിലേക്കു തന്നെ റോസറ്റയും പതിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു, ഗവേഷകരുടെ കണക്കുകൂട്ടൽ ശരിയായി. റോസറ്റയും ഫിലെയും ശതകോടി കിലോമീറ്ററുകൾക്കപ്പുറം വിദൂരതയിൽ ഒരുമിച്ച് ‘ഉറങ്ങുകയാണ്.’ ഗുഡ് ബൈ റോസറ്റ, ഗുഡ് ബൈ ഫിലെ.

ഇനിയിപ്പോൾ കുഞ്ഞുഫിലെയെ ‘മരിച്ചതായി’ പ്രഖ്യാപിക്കുകയേ വഴിയുള്ളൂ. ഒരു തിരിച്ചുവരവിനു സാധ്യതയില്ല. പക്ഷേ ശാസ്ത്രലോകം ആകെ സങ്കടത്തിലാണ്. വെറുമൊരു യന്ത്രമാണെങ്കിലും കാർട്ടൂണുകളിലൂടെ ഫിലെ ലോകത്തിന്റെ പ്രിയപ്പെട്ടവനായി മാറിയിരുന്നു. ആ ഇത്തിരിക്കുഞ്ഞൻ മരിച്ചതായി എങ്ങനെ പ്രഖ്യാപിക്കും?

റോസറ്റ – ഫിലെ ദൗത്യം

ഹോളിവുഡ് സിനിമകളിൽ കണ്ടിട്ടുള്ളതു പോലെയുള്ള ആവേശവും അദ്ഭുതവും നിറഞ്ഞ കഥയാണ് ഇത്. ഭൂമിയിൽ ജീവൻ എങ്ങനെയുണ്ടായി എന്നതിന്റെ വേരുകൾ തേടിയാണു 2004ൽ യൂറോപ്യൻ സ്പേസ് ഏജൻസി, 67 പി എന്ന ഛിന്നഗ്രഹത്തെക്കുറിച്ചു പഠിക്കാൻ റോസറ്റ വിക്ഷേപിക്കുന്നത്.

ഭൂമിയിലേക്കു ജലമെത്തിക്കുന്നതിലും ജീവനു കാരണമാകുന്നതിലും വാൽനക്ഷത്രങ്ങൾ നിർണായക പങ്കുവഹിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടെന്ന വാദത്തിന്റെ പൊരുൾ തേടുകയായിരുന്നു ലക്ഷ്യം. 650 കോടി യുഎസ് ഡോളറാണ് ഈ ദൗത്യത്തിന്റെ ചെലവ്.

റോസറ്റ–ഫിലെമാരുടെ നേട്ടം

ഒരു വാൽനക്ഷത്രത്തിൽ ഇറങ്ങുന്ന ആദ്യ പേടകമാണു ഫിലെ. വാൽനക്ഷത്രത്തിന്റെ അന്തരീക്ഷത്തിൽ കാർബണിക തന്മാത്രകളുടെ സാന്നിധ്യം ഫിലെ പേടകം കണ്ടെത്തി. കാർബണിക തന്മാത്രകളെ ജീവന്റെ ആദ്യ തെളിവായാണു കരുതുന്നത്.

അവർ സഞ്ചരിച്ച വഴി

2004 മാർച്ചിലാണു റോസറ്റ വിക്ഷേപിക്കുന്നത്. 10 വർഷം കൊണ്ട് 600 കോടി കിലോമീറ്റർ സഞ്ചരിച്ചു 

2014 ഓഗസ്റ്റിൽ ഛിന്നഗ്രഹത്തിന്റെ ഭ്രമണപഥത്തിൽ പ്രവേശിച്ചു.

2014 നവംബറിൽ റോസറ്റയിൽനിന്നു ഫിലെ വിക്ഷേപിച്ചു. എന്നാൽ ഛിന്നഗ്രഹത്തിന്റെ ഉപരിതലത്തിൽ ഉറച്ചുനിൽക്കാൻ ഫിലെയ്ക്കു കഴിഞ്ഞില്ല. പലതവണ ഇതു തട്ടിത്തെറിച്ച് ഇരുണ്ട കുഴിയിൽ വീണു. അങ്ങനെ കേടുപാടുകളുണ്ടായി. 

സൗരോർജം കൊണ്ടാണു ഫിലെ പ്രവർത്തിക്കേണ്ടിയിരുന്നത്. എന്നാൽ ലാൻഡിങ് തെറ്റിയതോടെ ബാറ്ററികൾ അടിയിലായിപ്പോയി. സൂര്യപ്രകാശം കിട്ടാത്ത അവസ്ഥ. എങ്കിലും ആദ്യത്തെ 57 മണിക്കൂറിൽ ഫിലെ പ്രവർത്തിച്ചു. ചിത്രങ്ങളും വിവരങ്ങളും ഭൂമിയിലേക്ക് അയച്ചു. 

പിന്നീടു ബാറ്ററി ചാർജ് തീർന്ന് ഉറക്കമായി. 2015 ജൂണിൽ അപ്രതീക്ഷിതമായി ഫിലെ വീണ്ടും ഉണർന്നു. ഭൂമിയിലേക്ക് എട്ടു സന്ദേശങ്ങൾ അയച്ചു. എന്നാൽ ഇത് അധികം നീണ്ടില്ല. 2015 ജൂലൈയിൽ വീണ്ടും നിശ്ശബ്ദമായി. വാഷിങ് മെഷീന്റെ വലുപ്പവും 100 കിലോ തൂക്കവുമാണു ഫിലെയ്ക്ക്.

ട്വിറ്റർ താരം

ഫിലെ ലാൻഡർ എന്ന പേരിലുള്ള ട്വിറ്റർ അക്കൗണ്ട് സൂപ്പർ ഹിറ്റാണ്. ഒരു വ്യക്തി എന്ന നിലയിലാണ് അധികൃതർ ഈ അക്കൗണ്ട് നടത്തുന്നത്. ഫിലെയുടെ ട്വീറ്റുകളും അങ്ങനെ തന്നെ. നാലരലക്ഷത്തോളം ഫോളോവേഴ്സ് ഫിലെയ്ക്കുണ്ട്. 

Rosetta mission: When scientists cry

It was a bittersweet moment for Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist at the European Space Agency, when his beloved probe crash-landed. He sat down with Jessie Wingard at mission control to relive the moment.DW: Can you describe that moment for you in mission control leading up to the crash of Rosetta into comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko? Matt Taylor: It's still really quite difficult for me to do. You know, you are watching and waiting for this thing to go. I was doing an interview in mission control around the time we got to minus 40 minutes - that's 40 minutes to go until nominal touchdown.

At that point everyone was changing, the atmosphere changed. I don't know what it was - everyone knew the spacecraft had gone, we were just waiting for that signal to get to Earth and that imparted some kind of influence on my emotions for the rest of the day. Now that Rosetta's mission is over, what's the most surprising data you found? It really is difficult to pick something out.

For me, the duck shape [of the comet] is really quite striking. But we have seen other objects, other comets like it with this bilobed nature like this duck shape. Molecular oxygen - that's also a big one for me. I find that exciting, because it shouldn't be there in that abundance.

We weren't expecting it to be there because oxygen is a very friendly molecule, it likes to go and see other molecules and get together. It's there by itself, which means it has to have been captured in a certain way, at a certain time, under certain conditions. By having it there, you can constrain how the comet was formed many, many years ago. That is a fantastic measurement, and we have many more like that and we are going to be poring over this data for many decades to come.

That leads me into my next question: What is going to happen to the data you have collected over the course of the mission? I was talking to Eberhard Grün, one of the grandfathers of the mission, and he was saying that we've got to this period - Rosetta ends today - however, let's make a comparison to the Rosetta Stone itself. The end of the mission is us actually getting our hands on the Rosetta Stone. Now we have to decipher the Rosetta Stone, that took 20 or so years to start deciphering that back in the day, and we are going to have a similar process in deciphering all this data.

And now it's there for high school kids, people inspired by this mission, they can go on and work on this data. There is so much of it. What has changed in our thinking when it comes to the way our solar system was formed? This is an interesting one.

If we go from the comet itself, a while ago we had ideas of separate regions where some of these small bodies were coming from. Over time it has evolved into a more blurred kind of feeling, whether you have asteroids only here, or comets only here - we're piecing that together. Rosetta raised many more questions, but there is also this thought: when we used to think of comets, [we thought of them as] just icy dust balls, or dusty ice balls, or snowballs. They are a much more diverse morphological system, something that is very reactive to the sun - we knew that, but the seasons are very important on the comet and how we now fit that with other comets is what we do now.

We've calibrated our ground base measurements with the Rosetta measurements. Now we will be able to compare other comets. By having this close relationship with this comet, seeing that it is built up from very small particles to the large-scale, perhaps fractal like in nature, our ideas of perhaps how comets could have formed in the first place [may have changed]. Has that happened for all of the comets?

That has implications for how the comet formed, and therefore how the solar system formed, so we have, I think, much more of an idea of that - or at least we will start addressing that with the data that we have. So I wouldn't say we've now proven this, but it has definitely given us a new view in how we can address this from the simulation perspective. Matt Taylor is a British-born astrophysicist currently working at the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany. In his role at ESA, he was involved in landing the Philae Lander, the first spacecraft to land on a comet nucleus, on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Taylor is the project scientist for the Rosetta mission. This interview was conducted by Jessie Wingard. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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World's Deepest Underwater Cave Discovered

Man and robot teamed up to discover the world's deepest underwater cave in the Czech Republic.

The cave, called Hranická Propast, reaches a dizzying depth of 1,325 feet (404 meters). It is about 39 feet (12 m) deeper than what is now the world's second-deepest cave, Italy's Pozzo del Merro.

Polish diver Krzysztof Starnawski first explored Hranická Propast in 1999. The type of limestone formation he found led him to believe that the cave could extend a greater distance than his dives had taken him. So Starnawski led a Czech-Polish expedition to explore the cave, supported in part by a National Geographic grant, which included numerous dives over the past two years to collect more data. The limestone abyss was recently measured with the assistance of a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), and determined to be the world's deepest.

During a 2014 dive, Starnawski reached 656 feet (200 m) deep, which he believed to be the bottom of the underwater cave. However, he found a narrow opening that led to another vertical tunnel extending beyond the probe Starnawski was using to measure the cave's depth — the line ran out at 1,260 feet (384 m), just shy of Pozzo del Merro, which measures 1,286 feet (392 m) deep. 

"He is a deep-cave diver, so he was keen to explore the deepest parts of the system," Marcin Jamkowski, a member of the expedition team and an adventure filmmaker, told Live Science.

Returning to the cave last year, Starnawski found the narrow passage had widened and he was able to squeeze through to a depth of 869 feet (265 m). He released another probe, this time hitting "bottom" at 1,214 feet (370 m), which was likely the top of debris from the collapsed passage.

A dive on Tuesday (Sept. 27) finally determined the cave's actual, record-breaking depth. The expedition team used ROV technology to reach the base of the cave, because depths past 400 meters are beyond the limits of scuba diving, Jamkowski said.

"There had been some dives done by the oil industry to such depths (so-called "saturation diving"), but they last approximately a month, surface to surface," Jamkowski wrote in an email. "This can never be done in the cave like this one, so the obvious choice was to send the robot where the man can't go."

Once the team explored the cave's depths, they found fallen trees, logs and branches at the bottom, suggesting the cave had changed its shape, according to Jamkowski. The configuration of the current shaft would not accommodate natural debris to fall from the cave's entrance, he said.

They also found the cave to be surprisingly large, as it appears to follow a natural rock feature or a fault line "eaten by the hot water going from the deep spring," Jamkowski said. The team plans further exploration and research into the cave.

Goodbye, Rosetta! Spacecraft Crash-Lands on Comet in Epic Mission Finale

DARMSTADT, Germany — For the last two years, the Rosetta spacecraft has danced around a comet. Today, it finally made contact with the icy body — and sent its last signal.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta probe ended its historic mission with a controlled descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko early this morning (Sept. 30). Scientists here at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) received the confirmation of landing from the spacecraft at about 1:19 p.m. local time (7:19 a.m. EDT/1119 GMT). 

"I can announce the full success of this historic descent," said Patrick Martin, Rosetta mission manager, as he declared mission operations ended. "Farewell Rosetta, you've done the job. That was pure science at its best." 

Comets are primitive cosmic objects, left over from the time our solar system was just starting to take shape 4.6 billion years ago. Exploring the structure, composition and activity of these icy bodies could shed light on the evolution of our solar system, and help scientists write a more comprehensive history of how the building blocks of life were first delivered to Earth.

Previous robotic expeditions have made close encounters with comets. NASA's Stardust mission even captured dust from the cloud around Comet Wild 2 and returned the sample to Earth in 2006. But Rosetta was the first to orbit a comet, the first to follow one around the sun and the first to send a probe to thesurface of a comet's nucleus.

Today's landing marks the end of an ambitious 1.3-billion-euro ($1.46 billion) mission that spanned more than a decade. Rosetta launched in March 2004, and after a 10-year cruise through the inner solar system covering a distance of 4 billion miles (6.5 billion km), it rendezvoused with Comet 67P in August 2014. Three months later, Rosetta deployed its surface probe Philae. But instead of anchoring to the comet's surface as planned, Philae bounced twice before coming to a stop against a cliff face in the Abydos region. Rosetta only spotted the final resting place of Philae earlier this month.

First observed in 1969, the 2.5-mile-wide (4 km) Comet 67P circles the sun every 6.5 years between the orbits of Earth and Jupiter. Right now the comet is heading back out toward the orbit of Jupiter, and Rosetta, which is solar-powered, wouldn't have enough energy to keep up, so the mission had to come to an end. The spacecraft will stop sending data as soon as it touches down, meaning mission scientists won't know if it tumbles or bounces like Philae did after it lands.

ESA has already released the final images that Rosetta collected on its way down to the comet's surface.

"It's really great," said Holger Sierks, the principal investigator for Rosetta's OSIRIS camera, as he presented some of the probe's final views. "It’' exciting. It’s working like a charm."

Comet 67P is very porous with low gravity, so Rosetta's landing likely looked more like a slow-motion collision than a violent crash. The spacecraft executed its final maneuver around midnight local time (6:00 p.m. EDT; 2200 GMT) yesterday (Sept. 29) and began a 14-hour, 12-mile (20 km) drop to the comet's surface. ESA officials had calculated that its speed upon impact would be about walking pace, or 2 mph (3.2 km/h). 

The controlled impact was designed to give ESA scientists a closer look at surface features they had only spied from afar.

"We got pretty close to the comet recently with the orbits we were doing," Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist with ESA, told Space.com. "We got within about 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] from the surface. But this plummet into the surface gets us in below 2 kilometers. It gets us within the acceleration region, where the comet coma grows and starts being thrown off."

The death dive was also an opportunity for Rosetta's suite of instruments to take measurements as it passes through the layer where the phase transition occurs between ice and gas.

Rosetta's final resting place is a smooth patch in the so-called Ma'at region on the "head" of the rubber duck-shaped comet.

This particular spot has a number of dust-spewing pits — some 330 feet (100 m) across and 165 feet (50 m) deep — that scientists wanted Rosetta's instruments to observe before the mission ended. The walls of these pits appear dotted with "goosebumps" that could be signatures of early comet building blocks known as cometesimals. 

The mission has already produced a number of surprising discoveries — that the Comet 67P has big grains of water ice on its surface, molecular oxygen in its coma, diverse landscapes and a fluffy core, just to name a few. But Rosetta scientists still have reams of data to pore over. So, even with today's finale, the work isn't over.

"We have 80,000 images to look at," Mohamed El-Maarry, a postdoctoral researcher with Rosetta's OSIRIS team, from the University of Bern in Switzerland, told reporters yesterday. "It's going to keep us busy for years to come."

Is Elon Musk's Plan to Send People to Mars Feasible?

On Tuesday (Sept. 27), billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk outlined plans to get hundreds of people to Mars. But are those plans really feasible? 

Musk, who is founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, outlined a plan to build spacecraft that could each transport on the order of 100 people to the Red Planet. The plan would also include a giant new SpaceX rocket, spacecraft and support systems to help get those people to Mars (or destinations beyond). The even-longer-term goal that tops off Musk's vision is for humans alter Mars' atmosphere and environment to make the planet hospitable to life. 

The plan is ambitious in nearly every way, from the technology Musk presented to the time line on which he hopes to accomplish these goals, not to mention the funding that will be required. Even so, the experts we talked to said it doesn't seem impossible, or even unachievable.

"There's no technical obstacle to the plan being executable," space policy expert John Logsdon told Space.com. "SpaceX has good engineers. They don't have to really invent much." 

Right now, SpaceX is flying nonhuman payloads for NASA and other customers, using the company's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule (both built entirely in house). SpaceX is scheduled to start flying astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA as early as 2017. The company is also working on a larger rocket, called the Falcon Heavy, and representatives for SpaceX have said they would like to use the rocket to send one of the company's Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018. 

The Falcon 9 has a reusable first-stage booster, which, instead of falling into the ocean and being scrapped after a launch, uses a set of thrustersto reorient itself, and three of its engines to lower itself down onto a landing pad. SpaceX has demonstrated a series of successful booster landings, although the company has not yet reused any of those landed boosters. That landing technology would likely be used to lower spacecraft onto the surface of Mars. 

Logsdon said he thinks the main obstacles to SpaceX's Mars plans are money and time. 

"The plan he is proposing on the timescale he is proposing seem to me to on the edge of fantasy," Logsdon said. He noted that Musk is known for setting ambitious goals on tight time lines, saying, "That's just Elon. That's his style."

In addition, Logsdon said that while Musk's plan seemed to explain how humans would get to Mars, there was a significant gap in planning as to how those spacefarers would establish a colony on the Red Planet. Technologies and procedures for surviving on the surface of Mars are, at best, still in the early planning stages. Supporting such a huge influx of people will require food sources, an economic system and energy supplies, which Musk did not explain, Logsdon said.

"He got a little hand-wavy there," Logsdon said. 

Because of the huge amount of funding a plan like this will require, SpaceX can't do it alone, Logsdon said. They'll need significant sources of funding, and NASA will likely be one of those sources, he said. As a result, it's very possible that NASA's plans to send humans to Mars will converge with SpaceX's plans, Logsdon added. 

The technological details

Some people are already breaking down the technical specifics of Musk's plan. Those experts include Robert Zubrin, leader of the space advocacy organization the Mars Society. 

"In his talk today, Musk presented a number of interesting and very useful ideas," Zubrin wrote on the society's website. "I don't think they are practical in the form he presented them, but with a little modification, they could be made practical and very powerful."

Ahead of Musk's talk on Tuesday, SpaceX representatives announced that the company is working on a rocket engine that would run on methane/oxygen propellant, which the company determined was a more readily available fuel on Mars. 

"He's right on the mark about using methane/oxygen propellant, which can be made on Mars, about making the spacecraft reusable and refillable on orbit," Zubrin wrote. However, Zubrin criticized Musk's plan to send one large propulsion system all the way to Mars, instead suggesting a system that would send the spacecraft toward Mars, but remain in orbit around the Earth. 

"Musk's mega-Mars plans are welcome news," Leonard David, author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet" (National Geographic, Oct. 2016) and a longtime Space.com contributor, said in an email. "But it is clear that there's far more needed in terms of technological and financial detail before climbing onboard his dream machinery."

"There are a number of 'DUD' (doable under duress) factors that must be dealt with before a true settlement on Mars becomes realistic," David said. Examples of DUD factors are "the types of machinery and power levels needed to run equipment for transforming the abundant resources on Mars into usable, life-supporting and sustaining supplies," he said.

The power of inspiration

The experts we talked to also agreed that Musk has certainly managed to inspire many people, both in the industry and in the general public, about space exploration. Logsdon said the atmosphere in the room during Musk's talk was "like a rock concert." 

"His extraordinary vision and passion is tugging at the adventuresome spirit of humankind, at least those who hunger to be part of a plan that assures our species becomes multiplanetary," David said. He later added that "Musk has served notice that building the bridge between the third and fourth planets in our solar system is an attainable and realizable goal."

Chris Carberry, executive director and co-founder of Explore Mars (a nonprofit created to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades), told David via email that "this announcement is likely to grow enthusiasm for humans on Mars tremendously.

"I think it is important, however, for SpaceX to articulate in more detail — over the next few months — their funding mechanism and how they will overcome the many technical and physiological challenges," Carberry said.

SpaceX's Elon Musk Unveils Interplanetary Spaceship to Colonize Mars

Now we know how Elon Musk plans to get 1 million people to Mars.

At a conference in Mexico today (Sept. 27), the SpaceX founder and CEO unveiled the company's Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which will combine the most powerful rocket ever built with a spaceship designed to carry at least 100 people to the Red Planet per flight.

If all goes according to plan, the reusable ITS will help humanity establish a permanent, self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet within the next 50 to 100 years, Musk said at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara.

Now we know how Elon Musk plans to get 1 million people to Mars.

At a conference in Mexico today (Sept. 27), the SpaceX founder and CEO unveiled the company's Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which will combine the most powerful rocket ever built with a spaceship designed to carry at least 100 people to the Red Planet per flight.

If all goes according to plan, the reusable ITS will help humanity establish a permanent, self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet within the next 50 to 100 years, Musk said at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara.

"What I really want to do here is to make Mars seem possible — make it seem as though it's something that we could do in our lifetimes, and that you can go," he said.

Mars transport system

A cutaway look at SpaceX's Interplanetary Transport System spaceship to ferry humans to Mars and beyond.Credit: SpaceX

The ITS rocket will be more or less a scaled-up version of the first stage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster, Musk said. But the 254-foot-tall (77.5 meters) ITS booster will feature 42 Raptor engines, whereas the Falcon 9 is powered by nine Merlins. When combined with its crewed spaceship, the ITS will stand a full 400 feet (122 m) high, Musk wrote on Twitter. That would make it the largest spaceflight system ever built, taller even than NASA's legendary Saturn V moon rocket.

The Raptor engine, which SpaceX recently test-fired for the first time, is about the same size as Merlin but three times more powerful, Musk said. ITS will therefore be an incredibly potent machine, capable of lofting 300 tons to low-Earth orbit (LEO) — more than two times more than Saturn V could lift. (That's for ITS's reusable version; an expendable variant could launch about 550 tons to LEO, Musk said.)

The spaceship, which sits atop the booster, will be 162 feet (49.5 m) tall and 56 feet (17 m) wide and will have nine Raptors of its own. The booster will launch the spaceship to Earth orbit, then return to make a soft landing at its launch site, which is currently envisioned to be Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

The spaceship will lift off with little if any fuel on board, to maximize the payload — people, cargo or a combination of both — that the craft is able to carry to orbit. An ITS booster will therefore launch again, topped with a tanker, and rendezvous with the orbiting spaceship to fill its tank.

Then, when the timing is right — Earth and Mars align favorably for interplanetary missions just once every 26 months — the spaceship portion of the ITS will turn its engines on and blast from Earth orbit toward the Red Planet.

The spaceship will be capable of transporting at least 100 and perhaps as many as 200 people, Musk said. It will also likely feature movie theaters, lecture halls and a restaurant, giving the Red Planet pioneers a far different experience than that enjoyed by NASA's Apollo astronauts, who were crammed into a tiny capsule on their way to the moon.

"It'll be, like, really fun to go," Musk said. "You'll have a great time."

This SpaceX graphic shows how the capabilities of the company's Interplanetary Transport for Mars stacks up to NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket.Credit: SpaceX

The powerful Raptors will allow the ship to make the trip in as little as 80 days initially, depending on exactly where Earth and Mars are at the time, Musk said. That's a pretty quick trip; it takes six to nine months for spacecraft to reach the Red Planet using currently available technology. And Musk said he eventually thinks the ITS ship will be able to cut the travel time to just 30 days or so.

There won't be just one ship making the journey. When the ITS is really up and running, 1,000 or more of the ships will zoom off to Mars every 26 months.

"The Mars colonial fleet would depart en masse," Musk said.

This fleet would land on Mars using "supersonic retropropulsion," slowing down enough to touch down softly by firing onboard thrusters rather than relying on parachutes. SpaceX said it plans to test this landing technique duringthe company's upcoming "Red Dragon" mission, which aims to launch SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon capsule toward Mars in May 2018. 

Not a one-way trip

SpaceX also plans to build a solar-powered factory on Mars that will use the carbon dioxide and water ice in the planet's air and soil, respectively, to generate methane and oxygen — the propellant used by the Raptor engine. (Musk didn't discuss other aspects of the Mars colony; SpaceX is concentrating on the transportation architecture, reasoning that the colonists themselves will build most of the city they live in.).

The ITS spaceships will be refueled on Mars and will launch back to Earth from there, meaning prospective colonists don't have to stay on the Red Planet forever if they don't want to. (Getting off Mars doesn't require a big rocket, because the planet is much smaller than Earth and therefore has a weaker gravitational pull.)

"We need the spaceship back, so it's coming," Musk said. "You can jump on board or not."

Each ITS spaceship will probably be able to fly at least a dozen times, and each booster should see even more action, Musk said. This reusability is the key component of SpaceX's plan, and should be the chief driver in bringing the price of a Mars trip — which Musk said would cost about $10 billion per person using today's technology — down to reasonable levels.

"The architecture allows for a cost per ticket of less than $200,000," Musk said. "We think that the cost of moving to Mars ultimately could drop below $100,000." 

Coming soon?

Fewer than 5 percent of SpaceX's personnel are working on the ITS at the moment, Musk said. And the company is currently spending just a few tens of millions of dollars on the project every year, which Musk estimated would ultimately require a company investment of about $10 billion.

But that should change as SpaceX wraps up work on the final version of the Falcon 9 and its crewed Dragon capsule, which will carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station for NASA (and perhaps ferry folks to other destinations close to Earth), Musk said.

Within two years, Musk aims to be devoting most of SpaceX's engineers to ITS, and to be spending perhaps $300 million annually on the project. He envisions other organizations eventually aiding SpaceX in Mars colonization as well, saying the effort will be a "huge public-private partnership."

He said he hopes to complete the first development of the spaceship within four years, then start suborbital testing shortly thereafter. If everything goes really well, Musk said, the ITS could be launching on its first Mars mission "within the 10-year time frame."

In the meantime, SpaceX plans to keep launching Dragons toward the Red Planet every 26 months using the company's Falcon Heavy rocket, to test technology and to establish a "steady cadence" of robotic missions that scientists could take advantage of to send experiments to Mars, Musk said.

The ITS could also be used for many other things, possibly enabling human exploration of Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa or allowing cargo to get from New York to Tokyo in just 25 minutes, Musk said. But for now, the main goal is colonizing Mars, which Musk has long said is the reason he started SpaceX back in 2002.

"The objective is to become a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species," the billionaire entrepreneur said, adding that doing so will make humanity far less susceptible to extinction. "The main reason I'm personally accumulating assets is to fund this."