(CNN) -- Patience, it is said, is a virtue. If that's the case, then the scientists involved in the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission have been very virtuous indeed.
Martin Barstow
After all, the men and
women involved in the project have waited most of their scientific
careers -- through years of planning and construction, not to mention
the 10-year journey of the Rosetta spacecraft -- to see the Philae
lander land on Comet 67P Churyumov Gerasimenko. And now they can enjoy
the fruits of this amazing adventure, which has landed (albeit a little
bumpily) and has been returning data.
Rosetta was an enormously
ambitious and technically risky project. However, overall, it has been a
great success so far, with a number of "firsts" for ESA that have not
been achieved by any other space agency -- it has chased a comet across
the solar system, rendezvoused and then achieved orbit.
Landing a probe on the
surface like this has been a huge challenge: working in a low gravity
environment with poor knowledge of the nature of the comet surface. It
was unclear even if it would it be a solid body or a loose collection of
material.
And there are plenty more
challenges ahead. For a start, although data has been collected from
the orbiter since August, and the first images are now being received
from the lander, it will take many more months and possibly years for
Rosetta to realize its full scientific legacy.
However, even as the
initial excitement over the technical success fades, we will gradually
begin to understand the building blocks of the solar system.
No comments:
Post a Comment