Rosetta

(rōzĕt`ə), former name of

Rashid

(räshēd`), city (1986 pop. 51,789), N Egypt, in the Nile River delta. The city once dominated the region's rice market; rice milling and fish processing are the main industries of modern Rashid. Founded in the 9th cent., the city was formerly an important port but declined after the building (1819) of the Mahmudiyah Canal, which diverted its trade to AlexandriaAlexandria,
Arabic Al Iskandariyah, city (1996 pop. 3,328,196), N Egypt, on the Mediterranean Sea. It is at the western extremity of the Nile River delta, situated on a narrow isthmus between the sea and Lake Mareotis (Maryut).
..... Click the link for more information. .

The Rosetta Stone is a granitoid slab inscribed in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek with identical texts of a decree by a council of priests during the reign of Ptolemy VPtolemy V
(Ptolemy Epiphanes) , d. 180 B.C., king of ancient Egypt (205–180 B.C.), of the Macedonian dynasty, son of Ptolemy IV. He succeeded to the throne as a small boy, and his reign began with disastrous civil wars.
..... Click the link for more information. . Part of a stele dating from 196 B.C., it was found (1799) by Napoleon's troops near the city, was taken (1801) by the British, and since 1802 has been displayed at the British Museum. It gave Jean-François ChampollionChampollion, Jean François
, 1790–1832, French linguist and Egyptologist. He is considered the founder of the science of Egyptology. His first important accomplishment was his two-volume work on the geography of ancient Egypt, which appeared when he was 24.
..... Click the link for more information. , Thomas YoungYoung, Thomas,
1773–1829, English physicist, physician, and Egyptologist. He established (1799) a medical practice in London and was elected (1811) to the staff of St. George's Hospital there.
..... Click the link for more information. , and others the key to Egyptian hieroglyphichieroglyphic
[Gr.,=priestly carving], type of writing used in ancient Egypt. Similar pictographic styles of Crete, Asia Minor, and Central America and Mexico are also called hieroglyphics (see Minoan civilization; Anatolian languages; Maya; Aztec).
..... Click the link for more information. .

Bibliography

See study by R. B. Parkinson (1999).

Rosetta

(roh-zet -ă) An international ESA mission to rendezvous with a comet. It was approved in 1993 as a ‘cornerstone’ mission of ESA's Horizon 2000 program, and the original plan was to bring back to Earth samples taken from a comet's nucleus. The spacecraft was to consist of a cruising module coupled with a landing module and Earth reentry module. The object of the mission was later changed to an 18-month analysis of cometary material. Rosetta was scheduled for launch in 2003 to rendezvous with Comet 46P/Wirtanen in 2011. But the timetable for launch slipped by a year and this fact necessitated the selection of a different target. Thus on Mar. 2 2004 the 3000-kg Rosetta craft was launched from Kourou, French Guiana, by an Ariane-5 rocket and set to encounter Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. Rosetta's journey to the comet involves three gravity-assist flybys of the Earth and one of Mars. It will pass close to two asteroids, (2867) Steins and (21) Lutetia. Rosetta's task on reaching the comet will be to enter orbit around it and accompany it on its inward journey toward the Sun. The main Rosetta craft will deploy a lander called Philae, which will touch down on the comet's nucleus and carry out on-the-spot measurements of the chemical and physical makeup and properties of the nucleus and coma. It is hoped that these measurements will advance our understanding of the origin of comets, the relationship between cometary and interstellar material, and the implications of that relationship regarding the origins of the Solar System. The nominal end of the Rosetta mission will come when Churyumov-Gerasimenko passes through perihelion in late 2015.

Rosetta

(1) See RosettaNet and HD-ROSETTA.

(2) An emulator from Apple that ran PowerPC-based applications on Intel-based Macs under OS X. Included with Apple's first Core Duo-based laptops, Rosetta ran most OS X applications except for those that used specific instructions in the G5 processor. Named after the Rosetta Stone, which inscribed a decree in 196 BC of the Egyptian King Ptolemy V in three languages, the Rosetta emulator was discontinued in the Lion version of Mac OS X. See Mactel.

Rosetta

Rosetta

Ro•set•ta

Rosetta

Rosetta

Rashid

Bibliography

Rosetta

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ROSETTA