Holy Shnookerdookies! We landed on a Comet!

With harpoons shooting out of it, and it's feet drilling to the ice, ESA's Philae space robot grabbed hold of the icy comet it was landing on for dear life. This marks the first time in history that we've ever landed on anything so tiny, and it marks an astounding success after a 10 year journey across our Solar System, and many years prior to that of planning and building the space probe that would make history.

This is an amazing feat, that could bring us closer to Planetary Resources dream of mining space. Philae's actual mission, however, is just as impressive. It will, give us an "unprecedented scientific analysis of the comet, a remnant of the Solar System’s 4.6 billion-year history."

We are sort of drifting in this little Solar System of ours, so it's important to know where it came from and where its going.

But since this is in large part an economics blog, let me talk a little about another important aspects of this.

Soft Power:
Science is one of the most important pieces to the soft power puzzle and in many cases' it's the most important. Don't believe me... Let me repeat what Just happened: The European Union developed new super advanced technologies which allowed us to land on a comet, and which will transform our understanding of our own existence... Which was mentioned over 160,000 times in the news.

Remember also that scientists are an important piece of a countries success, and the ESA now has news that's being read by tons of scientists and engineers around the world, engineers who have to decide where they want to work.


And now we're back to the science.

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).

The confirmation was relayed via the Rosetta orbiter to Earth and picked up simultaneously by ESA’s ground station in Malargüe, Argentina and NASA’s station in Madrid, Spain. The signal was immediately confirmed at ESA’s Space Operations Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt, and DLR’s Lander Control Centre in Cologne, both in Germany.

The first data from the lander’s instruments were transmitted to the Philae Science, Operations and Navigation Centre at France’s CNES space agency in Toulouse.

“Our ambitious Rosetta mission has secured a place in the history books: not only is it the first to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, but it is now also the first to deliver a lander to a comet’s surface,” noted Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s Director General....

Read More on the ESA's site