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Probe Successfully Lands On Comet For First Time

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[h=1]Live Updates: Probe Successfully Lands On Comet For First Time[/h]The European Space Agency has, for the first time in history, landed an unmanned probe on the surface of a comet in the culmination of a 10-year mission.
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Read more @: Probe Successfully Lands On Comet For First Time

For the first time in history, a space craft has successfully landed on a comet! :2razz:
 
Out of curiosity, what makes this different than when we landed on an asteroid a few years ago? It's cool and all that but I'm just kind of list as to what we're trying to find in doing this.
 
Lutherf said:
Out of curiosity, what makes this different than when we landed on an asteroid a few years ago? It's cool and all that but I'm just kind of list as to what we're trying to find in doing this.
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From the ESA:

The Rosetta mission will achieve many historic firsts.
◾Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to orbit a comet’s nucleus.
◾It will be the first spacecraft to fly alongside a comet as it heads towards the inner Solar System.
◾Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to examine from close proximity how a frozen comet is transformed by the warmth of the Sun.
◾Shortly after its arrival at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Rosetta orbiter will despatch a robotic lander for the first controlled touchdown on a comet nucleus.
◾The Rosetta lander’s instruments will obtain the first images from a comet’s surface and make the first in situ analysis to find out what it is made of.
◾On its way to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Rosetta will pass through the main asteroid belt, with the option to be the first European close encounter with one or more of these primitive objects.
◾Rosetta will be the first spacecraft ever to fly close to Jupiter’s orbit using solar cells as its main power source.


Scientists will be eagerly waiting to compare Rosetta’s results with previous studies by ESA’s Giotto spacecraft and by ground-based observatories. These have shown that comets contain complex organic molecules - compounds that are rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

Intriguingly, these are the elements which make up nucleic acids and amino acids, the essential ingredients for life as we know it. Did life on Earth begin with the help of comet seeding? Rosetta may help us to find the answer to this fundamental question.
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Europe's comet chaser / Rosetta / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA
 
Though there are certainly some good physics discoveries we may glean from this endeavor ..

.. They'd all pale in comparison if we discovered a comet was actually a probe itself.
 
We just barely missed it in Physics class!!!!

The class ended slightly too early so the teacher saw it but not us D:
 
This is a monumental feat, frankly. Kudos to the ESA for accomplishing this. We had a space program once.. sigh.. ;)


Tim-
 
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