This reminds me that I have to set up an "evening out at the pub" with a friend of mine here, who works for the ESA (European Space Agency) on two different projects that have gotten a mention here lately. First, and most immediately relevant, he was in charge of the database operations for the Rosetta project, so I'll ask him what's up now that Philae has rolled away the stone and come back to life.
But the other, more long-term project he works on is that he is in charge of the database used to store info on comets, asteroids, and other space junk that might hit the earth. Suffice it to say that this DB is *huge*, and presents some problems we've discussed before (I used to work in DB, and was curious) about the relational design of the data and issues he might face with optimization and speed of retrieval. From: "s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 12:26 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Philae only playing possum The European Space Agency (Esa) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth. Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November. It worked for 60 hours before its solar-powered battery ran flat. The comet has since moved nearer to the Sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos. An account linked to the probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?" On its blog, Esa said Philae had contacted Earth, via Rosetta, for 85 seconds on Saturday in the first contact since going into hibernation in November. 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