13 November 2014 Thursday 8:30 p.m. Watch: First Images from Historic Comet Landing After 15 years, 4 billion miles and several hours of nail-biting tension, ESAs robot lander makes history with first-ever comet landing. One day after its historic landing on a comet, the European Space Agencys robot probe Philae has beamed back the first images from its landing site Thursday. The ESA said the probe bounced hundreds of meters from its initial landing point, but that after several nail-biting hours it finally settled on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It is the final leg in a 4-billion-mile (6.4-billion-km) journey aboard the Rosetta satellite, which took 15 years. The montage of images released by the ESA begins with pictures taken several kilometers above the comet, and ends with the latest picture from Philae following its bumpy landing. That latter photo suggests the robot has either landed on a slope, or sideways, say experts, who are eager to start investigating the surface of the 10-billion-ton comet. Scientists are hoping to gain an insight into the origins of the universe by studying the ancient body - which they estimate to be around four billion years old. https://youtube/watch?v=-9COMo6vAkA#t=19
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 18:58:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015