Rosetta: Probe lands on comet

Europe’s Rosetta mission has made a historic first landing on a comet, 510 million kilometres from Earth. The landing marks the highlight of the decade-long mission to learn more about the origins of our Solar System
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1 ROSETTA ORBITER

2 Philae lander

3 Landing site

67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Icy core is around 4km (2.5 miles) wide
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ANATOMY OF SUCCESSFUL LANDING

1 08:35GMT: Fridge-sized lander launched from mother ship. 20km descent will take seven hours

2 11:00GMT: Rosetta receives signal from Philae, which unfurls legs and starts taking pictures

3 16:05GMT: Philae touches down safely on surface. Harpoons fasten probe to comet to prevent craft bouncing back into space

PHILAE LANDER: Drill to extract samples into onboard laboratory to analyse comet’s chemistry
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Source: ESA Picture: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team

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