Jubilation as Philae probe touches down on comet

There were jubilant scenes at ESA’s mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, as the Philae lander confirmed it was safe and sound on the surface of Comet 67P Churymov-Gerasimenko shortly after 1600GMT.

On release from Rosetta, the lander was around 22.5km from the centre of the 4km wide comet, with a nervous 7hr wait for the mission team to hear whether their calculations were correct.

Now secured onto 67P, Philae will set to work with its suite of 10 scientific instruments to investigate the composition of the comet, which like all comets, is one of the oldest and most primitive bodies in the solar system, being formed from the material left over after the condensation of the Sun and planets from the original nebula of dust and gas.

A more through understanding of the comet’s composition is expected to give scientists further understanding about how the solar system was formed, and shed further light onto the origins of life itself.