Congratulations... For the first time in history, spacecraft lands on comet Man has set foot on a comet - hurtling dusty snowballs that orbit the sun at unprecedented speed and hold the secret on how our solar system was formed 4.5 billion years ago. Human exploration of space made history with the European Space Agency successfully making the first man-made object land on a comet, to trace the origins of life on Earth. The Rosetta spacecrafts Philae lander touched down successfully on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at around 9.30 pm India time. There were cheers and hugs at the control room in Darmstadt, Germany after the signal was confirmed. This is a big step for human civilization, said Jean-Jacques Dordain, the director-general of the ESA. The Philae lander separated from the Rosetta orbiter at around 1.30 pm India time. The descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko took around seven hours, during which the lander took measurements of the environment around the comet. It also took images of the final moments of descent and sent it back to ESA.The first image from the surface is expected some two hours later (11.30 pm). Once attached to the two-mile-long comets surface with a pair of explosive harpoons, Philae will begin to take samples from the comet. Philae cannot send its data to Earth directly - it must do it via Rosetta. The billion euro Rosetta was launched in 2004 and arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on August 6, 2014. It is the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the Sun, and deploy a lander to its surface.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 17:05:35 +0000
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