Rosetta and Philae: landing on a comet

[sn26567]

Not really aviation, but what's happening in space right now is a great achievement of ESA, the European Space Agency.

The probe Philae has just detached from the Rosetta spacecraft and is quietly descending to the surface of a comet after billions of km in space.



This might get clues about how life has appeared on our planet Earth.

I am personally thrilled by this adventure.

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First picture of the Philae probe (with legs out) made by Rosetta's Osiris camera after separation:



Follow the comet landing live: http://new.livestream.com/ESA/cometlanding

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Philae has landed on comet 67P! Successful touchdown!

[Homo Aeroportus]

Thank you André for bringing this up.

This is indeed an incredible achievement.
To bring it to "our" aviation world, this is equivalent to flying :
BRU - MAD - PMO - HEL - HAM, about 6500km great circle i.e. 1 000 000 times "shorter" than the Rosetta's 6.5 billion km trip.

The comet is said to be 4km long/large/wide/big, so this is ... 4mm at the end of our flight to HAM.
Of course thanks to Rosetta bringing it within 22 mm of the target, this lazy Philae boy had an easy job and a "small step for a robot".

Amazing.

H.A.

[Homo Aeroportus]

P.S. : Congrats for your nice pic of the landing.
This makes you our first Comet Spotter

H.A.

[sn26567]

Unfortunately, it seems that Philae is stuck in an unstable position in a rocky and poorly lit spot, about 1 km from original landing site, after bouncing once or twice. But it remains a giant achievement. I hope ESA will be able to still get valuable information from the probe.

First picture of the surface of the comet:

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What appears to be the first 'true-colour image' of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has been revealed by Rosetta scientists.

And in a surprising twist, rather than being the 'charcoal black' that Esa expected, the image suggests the ancient comet is in fact a dusty red.