Robotic Probe Lands on Comet
A camera on board Philae snaps an image of Rosetta’s solar wing with 67P in the background. Photos courtesy ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA.
After over 10 years of chasing Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko around the solar system, Rosetta’s Philae lander has made history by becoming the first craft to land on a comet.
The seven-hour decent from Rosetta began before 3:00 a.m. EST and scientists confirmed anchored contact with the surface of the comet several minutes after 11:00 a.m. EST.
The European Space Agency says that millions of viewers from around the world tracked the lander’s progress via the agency’s live stream, and Twitter was thriving with #cometlanding posts from all walks of life, including several from William Shatner, who had earlier sent a good luck video to ESA.
What began as hours of nervous exhaustion quickly turned into joy and relief with the news from Philae. “We can’t be happier than we are right now,” said flight operations director Andrea Accomazzo just after confirmation of the landing.
“We are there. Philae is talking to us,” said Stefan Ulamec, Philae’s landing manager. “First thing he told us is that the harpoons have been fired and rewound, and the landing gear has been moved inside. So we are sitting on the surface.”
After some careful analysis the team determined that the harpoons did not fire as originally thought. However this may prove to be a fortunate mishap.
After a night of analyzing the data pouring in, ESA scientists have concluded that after a rough landing where the lander bounced twice, only two of the probe's three legs are on the surface and the probe appears to have landed in an area with little sunlight to power its solar panels.
The team was able to shift Philae's large solar panel towards the sun, however, limited sunlight has forced the scientists to put the probe into hibernation after about 60 hours of data collection. Science teams are working hard to analyze the ample data collected during this period and are optimistic that as 67P approaches the sun, the lander may return to life sometime this summer.
Landing occurred approximately a half hour before confirmation, as the signal between the ground station and lander takes that long at the speed of light to reach Earth from a distance of over 315 million miles away.
To follow the comet’s path, ESA has built a Rosetta tracker webpage where viewers can follow its progress around the solar system, including distance information as the world actively awaits images and data from Philae.
