ESA lists 35min to lander separation, Randall lists 65.. I'll definitely keep both windows open, but it sure seems like the ESA site might be quicker on updates for live events!
>I'll definitely keep both windows open, but it sure seems like the ESA site might be quicker on updates for live events!
This is so hilarious. For up to the minute information, it's a toss-up between the European Space Agency's live stream on the probe it's landing on a comet, and... a hand-drawn web comic about it.
ESA's PR is not very good. They have mostly talking heads while Randall Munroe actually provides a good overview on what's happening now and what's going to happen next.
When humanity landed on Titan (which is a mind boggling achievement), the pictures couldn't be shown right away because they had to have some politician talking some platitudes first.
The absurdity of that statement became clear to me almost immediately after I typed it.. but then again, the XKCD updates ended up occurring exactly on schedule so maybe it wasn't so absurd after all!
I know that website is a useful tool in itself, but when I learned this is what Mark Karpeles is up to now, I felt bitter. I guess I still am not over the fact his company stole a non-trivial sum of my money.
Please don't take it as a slur against this harmless site. It just... surprised me.
It really brings special relativity home to think that the ESA's counter is only valid from the reference frames we usually use. It's only when Randall's counter reaches zero that we can unambiguously say that the probe landed in the past.
