Catching a comet

They did it!  Philae touched down (and then again, and then again) on 67P at a bit after 3am AEST Nov 12, '14.

Awesome... totally awesome.

So how big is 67P?  Well, here it is delicately placed on central Los Angeles...

(Grabbed image off twitter, lost track of source. Sorry!)

Philae landed somewhere in that crater on the right of the comet.

The ESA twitter accounts have included the following cartoons with their count-down to the big day.  Adorable.
I'm loving the new wave in science communication.  Using social media and making it fun and accessible.  Showing these pictures made it so much easier and more interesting to share the excitement of the acheivement with the kids at home.

The landing wasn't quite as smooth as depicted.  Reports now say that Philea landed, bounced a kilometer high, landed and bounced 20m high, and landed and bounced one last time.  It seems to have ended up about 1km away from the intial landing point (which was hit squarely, impressive!), and is resting against a crater wall or a boulder or something with one leg up in the air.  The harpoons didn't fire, the screws didn't dig in and the top jet was already faulty.

This didn't happen.

Little Philae ended up in the shadowy side of a crater, it looks like, and is only getting about 1.5 hours of sunlight on its panels per day - so it looks like it might slow down the experiments and readings it can take.

But, it is on the comet, it is doing science and it is returning data - so that counts as an incredible success for ESA.  A very cool moment for science.

Final words go to the final panel in the XKCD 142 panel extravaganza that covered the preparation and landing phase...

XKCD

All go!

Philae has got the Go on all systems, although the small cold gas thruster is reporting trouble. So they're pinning hope on the harpoons to secure it down.

Philae had been released and is drifting down at a walking pace. Less than 2 hours until we know!  Its about 1am here and I'm not able to make it to the live landing... I'll have to catch up tomorrow.

Good night, Philae!  Safe journey!

(Adorable cartoons from ESA twitter)

Almost there!

Been following the lead up all day via Twitter as the Rosetta probe got into position to release Philea.
I sure hope that after 10 years all the bits wake up and do what they need to do!

(Adorable cartoons from ESA twitter)