At the beginning of 2014 we indicated that Rosetta is the ESA probe responsible for studying comets and that she had just woken up to do so. We also talked about Philae, a module added to Rosetta, which weighed 100 kilograms and that it was going to be the first attempt that humans made to land on a kite. Well, Philae arrived at the comet of long name, 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and managed to settle on it. As @wicho says in Microsiervos the milestone is spectacular:
We have managed to place a probe on a comet that travels through space at 66,000 kilometers per hour and is more than 500 million kilometers from Earth and this after having pursued it for ten long years and along 6,500 million kilometers
If 45 years ago the human being arrived at the Moon and marked a milestone in the history of science, now, with the arrival of Philae and landing on a comet, again a resounding success that will serve for the new generations Keep learning, improving and striving to learn more about the Universe we live in. I hope this feat is studied and analyzed by elementary students in schools and with adapted units because there is plenty of material to do so. On the Internet there are abundant images, videos and pages to encourage children to work and learn about this spatial success.
The image that illustrates the article has been APOD (astronomical photo of the day) and shows one of Philae's legs resting on the surface of C67 / P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Although Philae bounced twice before landing on the comet, imagine a ship bouncing on a stone that moves at 66,000 kilometers per hour! In the end he managed to stop and stay on the comet that approaches the sun as we saw in the ESA video. The light that can be seen comes from the sun and the desolation that is seen is incredible. Philae has been turned off because solar panels do not generate enough energy although it seems that they will try to wake up soon.
Many years ago kites we saw them in Photos in which the wake and little else or we studied them thanks to the remains that appear on Earth. Now we have been able to reach one, to continue orbiting the sun with him and Even to settle on! We congratulate the ESA scientists who have achieved this enormous success and we will be attentive to the press to learn what other successes to reach await Philae.
Here is another image of the APOD with details of the technical components and their functions. An excellent job for kids to know in detail what possibilities of acquiring knowledge incorporates Philae and that helps to understand the complexity of this project. Clicking on the image looks much better:
