Why Rosetta’s Comet Landing is so Exciting
As it is incredibly exciting and trending almost everywhere, the Rosetta mission is mankind’s longest leap in understanding the icy dirt balls that float around.
On 12th November, 2014 just after 1600 GMT an ESA spacecraft made the first ever soft landing on a comet, 67P that orbits the sun at a speed of approximately 135,000km/h. This landing marked the end of 20 years of planning, 10 years in space and 7 hour long wait, when Philae broke off from its mother ship, Rosetta.
But you weren’t aware about this historic event until a couple of days when it became trending. Nor were you a scientist working on the Rosetta Mission from the last 20 years. Then why should you be excited about a comet landing?
Here is why:
1. Because it the first space craft to land on a comet
Spacecrafts are running on the surface of Mars, satellites are orbiting Jupiter and Neptune but there has never been a comet landing. This is the first ever spacecraft to land on the surface of a moving comet. And since, comets are icy remnants of the solar system, their formation can throw some light on how life was developed on Earth. And answer the biggest question, “Are we alone?”
2. This is what made us blue
The icy dirtballs are considered to be the building blocks as well as catalysts in building our solar system. They are made of water- ice that vaporizes when heated by the sun producing microscopic dust particles that could have been ablated to Earth paving a way for life. Also, studying the geology, spin and proximity to the sun, we can measure if comet bombardments made oceans on Earth billion of years ago!
3. To carbon date the Solar System
It is believed that comets have particles that made the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. With Rosetta orbiting its target for more than a decade, it has been transmitting detailed information about the comet’s nucleus, chemical composition, gaseous surroundings and its detailed topology. And Philae will add to it by digging in the interior of the comet that can help us better understand how a planet becomes habitable.
4. Had a really small area of landing
P67 comet is roughly shaped like a rubber duck, full of slopes, pocked surfaces, and craters strewn with boulders all over. It was very difficult to finalize a safe landing site that could prevent the space craft from toppling. Finally it was decided that Philae would land on the spot named Agilkia that was only one kilometer wide. In order to make the spacecraft land in the right place taking into account the dust, water vapor and its oddly shaped gravitational field, it was a real task for the ESA scientists to zero in from Earth.
5. Rosetta is going on since 1996
20 years ago, we were preparing to land on a comet we knew nothing about. Gearing up to dig in the unknown by investing $1.4 t $1.5 billion by joint effort between various space agencies. Though the number is big, it covers development, construction, instruments, launch and operations. However, this figure is barely half the price of a modern submarine, or three Airbus 380 jumbo jets, and covers a period of almost 20 years, from the start of the project in 1996 through the end of the mission in 2015.
This post first appeared on Function Space.
