Tag: Rosetta

Philae has landed!

November 12, 2014 • 11:34 am

by Greg Mayer

Qapla’!! Philae has landed! The European Space Agency’s Philae lander has successfully landed on Comet P67, and begun transmitting data.

Philae, as seen from Rosetta, on its way to the comet (European Space Agency, ESA)
Philae, as seen from Rosetta, on its way to the comet (European Space Agency, ESA)

If you rewind the live feed, the success signal is received at exactly 3:00:00 (17:03 CET in Darmstadt), so you can see the reaction in the control room. Here’s the BBC coverage, which includes the hugging in the control room.

Here’s the comet itself, taken by Rosetta, prior to the landing.

A view of the comet (European Space Agency, ESA).
A view of the comet (European Space Agency, ESA).

William Shatner is providing live tweet coverage, and there’s coverage from the Telegraph, the Guardian (lots of nice pictures at the Guardian), and the NY Times. There was also live coverage in the US on NASA TV, but I think that has now ended.

Qapla', Klingon for success, written in the Klingon script plqaD.
Qapla’! (Klingon for success, written in the Klingon script plqaD).

EDIT from Matthew Cobb: xkcd was *live-cartooning* the whole event, with updates to his cartoon in real time. Tanya Harrison has assembled them all into this nifty gif (pronounced…)