That One Time We Landed the Rosetta Spacecraft on a Moving Comet Was Pretty Chill
European Space Agency has successfully touched down the Rosetta Mission's Philea Lander on Comet 67P's surface.
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Human civilization made history this morning when the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission landed a space craft on the surface of a comet for the first time ever.
Moments after 11:00 a.m. EST, the ESA confirmed, following a 7-hour descent, that the Philae landing craft made contact with the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. After making permanent anchorage to the comet's surface, Philae will begin collecting data through a series of onboard laboratories. Core samples, telemetry, and 3D rendering of the comet's surface will be handled via the lander's automated systems. This is a huge deal for space exploration and there's really only one way we can express how we actually feel:
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