Landing on the comet after trip of 6.5 billion kilometers – AD.nl

By: editors
26-9-14 – 23:27 Source: Reuters After a journey of 6.5 billion miles through space will be a landing on a comet are performed. on 12 November for the first time © ESA / Rosetta

video Europe trying to put. Onto the surface of a comet on November 12, a scout That the European Space Agency announced today. Never has an explorer landed on a comet.

Comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a bit like a rubber duck four kilometers wide. © ESA.

Project Fred Jansen. © Twitter.

On November 12, Rosetta will release Philae explorer, and the lander sinks slowly to the surface of the comet . Then the explorer moves slowly to the surface. After about seven hours of flying, the first landing on a comet ever a fact. © ap.

The Rosetta with the explorer Philae flies still around the comet 67P / Tsjoerjoemov-Gerasimenko. That looks like a rubber duck. The site of the landing was announced last week. The scout should go to the “head” of the comet. There it is fairly flat.

Also there is enough sunlight to charge the battery. If the landing there anyway can not go through the ESA has an alternative at hand. That is a spot on the ‘body’ of the rubber duck. There, too, the Philae would have to land on November 12.

Slow surface
It is intended that the Rosetta on 12 November at 9:35 pm Dutch time Philae release . Then the explorer moves slowly to the surface. After about seven hours of flying is landing. Nearly half an hour later, a little after 17:00 pm, the signal should arrive on earth that everything was successful. In the alternative venue that would happen a few hours later.

The scout Philae need to drill into the surface of 67P, to determine where the comet exists. Include the coming year That can scientists give a better picture of the origin of our solar system and hence of the earth.

cloud of gas and dust
Comet 67P is in fact originated from the same cloud of gas and dust from which the Earth and the other planets are clumped. The world has changed a lot in the billions of years that followed, the comet or no.

The Rosetta was launched in March 2004 and now has about 6.5 billion kilometers on the clock. The route took three times past Earth and once past Mars. The Rosetta had the gravity of the two planets needed to make the crossing to the comet. Enough speed

The mission is a showcase of Europe and will cost more than 1.3 billion euros. The Dutchman Fred Jansen leads the project.

Comet filmed from 62 kilometers. © ESA.