Mountain Views News          Saturday, November 15, 2014

THE WORLD AROUND US

B2

Mountain Views-News Saturday, November 15, 2014 


TOUCHDOWN! ROSETTA’S PHILAE PROBE LANDS ON COMET

On Nov. 12, ESA’s Rosetta mission made history by 
soft-landing its Philae probe on a comet, the first 
time such an extraordinary feat has been achieved.

 After a tense wait during the seven-hour 
descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-
Gerasimenko, the signal confirming the successful 
touchdown arrived on Earth at 16:03 GMT (8:03 
a.m. PST).

 “Our ambitious Rosetta mission has secured a 
place in the history books: not only is it the first 
to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, but it is 
now also the first to deliver a lander to a comet’s 
surface,” noted Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s 
Director General.

 Rosetta was launched on 2 March 2004 and 
travelled 6.4 billion kilometers through the solar 
system before arriving at the comet on 6 August 
2014.

 The landing site, named Agilkia and located on 
the head of the bizarre double-lobed object, was 
chosen just six weeks after arrival based on images 
and data collected at distances of 30-100 km from 
the comet. Those first images soon revealed the 
comet as a world littered with boulders, towering 
cliffs and daunting precipices and pits, with jets of 
gas and dust streaming from the surface.

 During its seven-hour descent, which was 
made without propulsion or guidance, Philae 
took images and recorded information about the 
comet’s environment.

 Touchdown was planned to take place at a speed 
of around 1 m/s, with the three-legged landing gear 
absorbing the impact to prevent rebound, and an 
ice screw in each foot driving into the surface.

 But during the final health checks of the lander 
before separation, a problem was detected with 
the small thruster on top that was designed to 
counteract the recoil of the harpoons to push the 
lander down onto the surface. The conditions of 
landing—including whether or not the thruster 
performed—along with the exact location of Philae 
on the comet, are being analyzed.

 Over the first 2.5 days after its landing, Philae 
will conduct its primary science mission, assuming 
that its main battery remains in good health. An 
extended science phase using the rechargeable 
secondary battery may be possible, assuming Sun 
illumination conditions allow and dust settling on 
the solar panels does not prevent it. This extended 
phase could last until March 2015, after which 
conditions inside the lander are expected to be too 
hot for (due to the comet’s approach to the Sun) it to 
continue operating.

 Science highlights from the primary phase will 
include a full panoramic view of the landing site, 
including a section in 3D, high-resolution images 
of the surface immediately underneath the lander, 
on-the-spot analysis of the composition of the 
comet’s surface materials, and a drill that will take 
samples from a depth of 23 cm and feed them to an 
onboard laboratory for analysis.

 The lander will also measure the electrical 
and mechanical characteristics of the surface. 
In addition, low-frequency radio signals will be 
beamed between Philae and the orbiter through the 
nucleus to probe the internal structure.

 Next year, as the comet grows more active, 
Rosetta will need to step further back and fly 
unbound ‘orbits’, but dipping in briefly with daring 
flybys, some of which will bring it within just 8 km 
of the comet center.

 The comet will reach its closest distance to the 
Sun on 13 August 2015 at about 185 million km, 
roughly between the orbits of Earth and Mars. 
Rosetta will follow it throughout the remainder of 
2015, as they head away from the Sun and activity 
begins to subside.

 

You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@
MtnViewsNews.com.

LIFE WITH BEARS, COYOTES, MOUNTAIN LIONS 
AND OTHER WILDLIFE 

THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF “MAN VS. WILD” 
By Christopher Nyerges


Remember to act responsibly when in bear 
territory and in the San Gabriel Valley, with 
this year’s drought especially, we are in Bear 
Country. Our wildlife is suffering from the 
lack of rain and are searching relentlessly for 
food and water.

Because bears are attracted to anything 
edible or smelly, their search often leads them 
more frequently into our neighborhoods, 
where trash and food is readily available. 

Local police departments and the California 
Department of Fish and Wildlife are 
receiving more and more calls when bears 
come down into the community and 
rummage through trash bins. These bears 
are often labeled “nuisance” bears, but 
in reality they are just doing what comes 
naturally to them, foraging for food.

Tips for Bear-Proofing Your Home:

Bears have keen noses and can smell an easy 
meal from miles away. To avoid unwanted 
visitors searching for food;

• Purchase and properly use a bear-proof garbage container. Athens Services has them available.

• Wait to put trash out until the morning of collection day.

• Don’t leave trash, groceries, or animal feed in your car.

• Keep garbage cans clean and deodorize them with bleach or ammonia.

• Keep barbecue grills clean and stored in a garage or shed when not in use.

• Make bird feeders inaccessible to bears.

• Don’t leave any scented products outside, even non-food items such as suntan lotion, insect repellent, 
soap or candles.

• Keep doors and windows closed and 
locked.

• Harvest fruit off trees as soon as it is ripe, 
and promptly collect fruit that falls.

• Securely block access to potential 
hibernation sites such as crawl spaces under 
decks and buildings. 

 For the first time, I 
watched an episode of 
“Man vs. Wild” with Bear 
Grylls. Yes, I have heard 
about it for years, and 
yes, I have seen young 
teenagers drooling over 
their Bear Grylls’ knives, 
and yes, I even saw Mr. Grylls doing some 
silly act on the Jay Leno Show. But I had never 
watched the “Man vs. Wild” show.

 I expected some great lessons on survival, 
and relevant topics on how to protect myself and 
my family from the many threats within and 
without. I expected entertainment also; I mean, 
it’s television after all. But I naturally assumed 
that with all the popularity of this show, it would 
have something useful, interesting, relevant, 
and imminently valuable to share. Boy was I 
wrong!

 During the one episode I watched, I don’t 
think I saw any useful survival skill that I would 
ever be in a position to employ. In fact, most 
of it would be categorized as what NOT to do! 
Furthermore, there was no sense of purpose or 
reason to what the man was doing. OK, he was 
dressed a bit too neat and clean and he was on 
this quest for water in the desert.

 He jumps into a deep rocky hole looking 
for water. Really? A “survival expert” would 
never have jumped into such a chasm in this 
dangerous manner since a real expert could 
have seen there was no water in there merely by 
looking. But you do get to see him scramble out 
of the hole. OK, so he has athletic abilities, but 
not the wisdom to demonstrate what not to do.

 He then dug a little hole in a dry stream, 
which is indeed a spot where you’d find water. 
I have done just that many times and dug deep 
enough to where water would seep in, clarify 
on its own, and then I could drink it. But Mr. 
Grylls, instead, proceeded to pack wet sand into 
the sock he just took off his foot and squeeze 
the sock to get out a few drips of water. Really? 
Again, a real expert would not do that, and 
the bad thing about the show is that someone 
will leave thinking that is a bonafide survival 
skill. He’s appealing to the lowest common 
denominator of thrills and grossness but he 
didn’t show real useful skills, and he could have, 
and he should have.

 Folks, it only got worse.

 Next, he is purportedly wandering along 
and found some debris in the desert. Looks 
like some hang-glider crashed here, he tells us. 
Really? All the gear was relatively new – not 
worn out and weather worn like you’d expect to 
find in the desert. And lo and behold, he found 
just the right amount of debris to rig together a 
little three wheel cart and then the old parachute 
was used so the wind could pull him along. Very 
ingenious yes, but the debris was most certainly 
planted there, and the likelihood of anyone ever 
actually fashioning such a vehicle from found 
objects is so remote as to be laughable. In fact, I 
began to ask my friend if the show was intended 
to be comedy.

 There were numerous dangerous maneuvers 
when one could have taken a safe route. He 
chooses to whirl around edges of a mountain 
on his supposedly-found parachute cord, rather 
than just hike the safe and sure way around. He 
squeezes through holes in rock when he could 
have safely gone around. And he quickly makes 
a bundle bow to shoot a rock tied to a string to a 
distant hill so he could hang on the rope to get 
to the distant mountain. Really? He would have 
done far better simply by tossing the rock. But 
most of the purported skills seem faked. I could 
not help but wonder how many naive teenage 
boys will die when they try to duplicate what the 
“survival expert” on TV did. 

 And part of my point is, there was no 
point! Grylls chooses danger when there are 
obviously many safe ways. You survive not by 
taking ridiculous and unnecessary risks, but 
by thinking your way through a situation and 
choosing the wisest route. This was bad TV, bad 
advice, there was no real drama and no point 
to Mr. Grylls’ wanderings. Is the show really 
popular? If Mr.Grylls is really the expert he is 
made out to be, why does he allow himself to be 
paid to demonstrate the antithesis of “survival”?

 Before we turned off the pointless show, 
my viewing companion and I watched as Mr. 
Grylls took two aluminum tubes and purported 
to make a fire piston. He stuck a little bit of 
some sort of tinder in one end, and hit one 
tube of aluminum into another and magically 
produced a glowing ember. Folks, that was as 
phony as they come. If any of you have tried to 
get an ember with a fire piston, you know that 
everything has to be “just-so,” and even then 
it will be very difficult. This was just one more 
staged aspect of a phony show that is not even 
good entertainment. 

 We turned off the TV and found it far more 
enlightening and enriching to discuss Paul 
Campbell’s latest book on the Universal Tool 
Kit. 

 And what of the hour or so I spent watching 
Bear Grylls? Well, as Alan Halcon likes to say, 
that’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.

 [Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive 
Anywhere” and 9 other books. He has 
taught practical survival skills and wild food 
identification to ordinary folks since 1974. He can 
be reached at www.ChristopherNyerges.com.]


Keeping Coyotes Away, Too!

Take the same precautions as for bears. 
Coyotes eat practically everything and 
are attracted to places where they can 
find easy pickings of fruit, or trash. 
They also eat small animals so please be 
careful.

Don’t keep pet food outdoors