The Rosetta Comet Landing Has Made History!
UPDATE: AT 11:05 AM, SUCCESSFUL LANDING WAS CONFIRMED
After 10 years of hard work and one nerve-wracking night, the Rosetta mission has made history by landing on the surface of a comet.
The lander Philae was confirmed to touch down on the surface of the comet more than 300 million miles away at 11:05 a.m. Eastern time. Now, scientists expect it to send a panoramic image home and begin analyzing the comet for scientists back on Earth.
The comet contains the materials that originally formed our solar system, frozen in time. By digging them out, we can learn more about the origins of our own planet. The Rosetta spacecraft has made invaluable observations about the comet’s attributes, and it will continue to do so as it follows it around the sun for the next year. But Philae will be able to look more closely at the comet’s physical and molecular composition.
“It’s a look at the basic building blocks of our solar system, the ancient materials from which life emerged,” said Kathrin Altwegg of the University of Bern in Switzerland, who is one of Rosetta’s project leads. “It’s like doing archaeology, but instead of going back 1,000 years, we can go back 4.6 billion.”
Photo: A composite image shows a solar wing of the Rosetta spacecraft in front of the comet. (European Space Agency via AP)
The Philae lander has separated from the Rosetta orbiter, and is now on its way to becoming the first spacecraft to touch down on a comet.
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