Philae landing: touchdown highlights

Highlights from coverage of ESA's Rosetta mission soft-landing its Philae probe on a comet, the first time in history that such an extraordinary feat has been achieved.

After a tense wait during the seven-hour descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the signal confirming the successful touchdown arrived on Earth at 16:03 GMT (17:03 CET).

More about Rosetta at:

[EuropeanSpaceAgency]

Philae landing: touchdown highlights.


#cometlanding #Rosetta #Philae  

[judyrioflorido]

Wow. I'm extremely happy to see the mission succeed! Before the landing, I saw no real shots aside from the animation demonstration of Rosetta landing but when the black & white image flashes on the screen, I was totally in awe. It's the real thing man! It has finally landed! 

[obsidianjaguar]

European Space Agency, ESA I have been watching this mission with great anticipation. Congratulations on a successful landing! The information gleaned from 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko will prove valuable and hopefully give us answers to this vast universe of which we are part.

[iamtoocoooool]

Congratulations to Europe from India. Please also expect my gratitude and appreciation as a human being. Great step forward for humanity. 

[thaGkillah]

In my online-newspaper they said that the harpunes failed and that they will try to fire it again... any updates about this?

[nicol]

It is incredible how far human kind has come! These people are awesome!!!

[OctozoidPRS]

After 10 years ..my hat is off to you all...well done everybody.

[jack]

I'm old enough to remember Laika, Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepherd... thanks so much for making me feel young and hopeful again! Best wishes from us stargazers here in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania USA!  Anything is possible.

[karlbennett]

This was science fiction not so long ago, and now it's a reality and even more wonderful,   well done to all our deeply clever brothers and sisters all over the earth, you are amazing.

[DerSpeggn]

You achieved something that is compareable to the first moon landing. 
Congratulations to ESA! Lets all hope Philaes harpoons will be fixed, and the little buddy can hold on to J67! 

[Cohodes]

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE ESA'S ROSETTA FANTASTIC

[serenityjoe]

I love how relaxed they are over something so exciting! I would be jumping up and down!

[KlingonCaptain]

I was watching it live and I know that there were some problems with the anchoring system; please give an update as soon as possible and let us know what happened.

[rauliherquin]

What's Sean Lennon doing there??? 1:10

[marioledstur]

Well congrats to the teem, I'm eager to hear Wal Thornhill's evaluation of the data when it trickles in, then get to hear something more valuable than 2mins of applause. 

[vekonglengkong]

dear Lord in heaven, no shit these guys made it, they got Einstein backing up the project lol look at 0:08 - 0:18

[rursus]

Where are the images (curves, numbers, etc.) from the sensors?

[ehyouman]

Whats happening with the harpoon anomaly?!! 

[LEJapproach]

So glad Philae made it (I mean, my tax money helped paying for it :))! I feel proud of us, with "us" being "humans", because even though Rosetta is an ESA mission, space flight is (almost) always international and keeps demonstrating what humans can achieve when not fighting each other, but working together!

[danielg.fiorotti]

A second giant step for humankind?  For sure!!  Congratulations to all at ESA.  You've made it!!