Rosetta's Philae has Landed on a Comet!

[Heavenly Spoon]

So after more than 10 years we'll hopefully have a lander on an actual comet pretty soon. If you want to watch it as live as possible taking into account the speed of light, click here. The lander has successfully detached from the orbiter and is en route to the comet.

We're about to harpoon a comet, people!

We have landed! We've successfully harpooned and landed on a comet. Now we're waiting for the first data/pictures.

 

[Milennin]

Cool. I hope they find some interesting stuff on that comet.

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

Apparently the harpoons didn't fire, which means Philae might not stay put. So far it seems to be doing well, and if I'm not mistaken it has other ways of holding on, but here's hoping they can fix the situation soon. Everything else has been a great success, and holy expletive we landed on a comet, so at least we have that going for us.

We do have some neat pictures by the lander en route to the comet, and pictures of the surface should start arriving in the very near future.

 

[Chaos Jackal]

An impressive achievement, given the meticulous calculations and circumstances required for the landing to be successful. Hopefully, it will also give us insight in some of our questions. While we have seen photos of comets before, none of them was from that proximity. Here's to a good data collection.

The robot landed, but was unsuccessful in grabbing on the surface and was knocked back into space, where it floated for a few hours before landing yet again. However, it seems to have fallen over a cliff or the edge of a crater, for it is apparently on its side, in a hole, at a place where there isn't enough sun to recharge its batteries. The best way to get out of this pinch is currently being debated.