Rosetta Mission 'A Place Within the History books'

Imagination became reality Wednesday once a mechanical space traveler referred to as the Philae probe plunked down on its target, a comet with a way less romantic name -- 67P -- some 310 million miles from Earth.

'A place within the history books'

"The Rosetta mission has made history in our world. not solely is it the primary to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, however it's currently additionally the primary to deliver a lander to a comet's surface," Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's director general, aforementioned in a piece of writing announce on the ESA web site.

Many folks, and not simply those who work for ESA, are excited concerning what reasonably data Philae can deliver.
"Rosetta is attempting to answer the terribly huge questions about the history of our solar system," "What were the conditions like and the way did it evolve? What role did comets play during this evolution? however do comets work?"

And fantasy author Alastair reynolds said: "This is fantasy created real in terms of the action of the mission itself, however Rosetta is additionally taking us a step nearer to respondent science fiction's grandest question of all: are we alone?"

Rosetta took aloof from Earth ten years past carrying Philae and traveled half-dozen.4 billion miles before inbound in early August at the comet.
The Philae lander separated from the orbiting Rosetta around 3:30 a.m. ET Wednesday and landed on the estraterrestrial body seven hours later.

engineer Laurence O'Rourke told CNN that the satellite Rosetta had to be within the right position to permit the lander craft, that had no thrusters, to "free fall" on the right flight therefore it landed on the estraterrestrial body.
The lander weighs concerning 220 pounds and is that the size of a domestic washer. The target comet is just 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles, in diameter.
References : CNN