人类第一个登月探测器 人类探测器首次登陆彗星

人类探测器首次登陆彗星  

An unmanned probe touched down on a et for the first time on Wednesday
as the European Space Agency’s Philae lander successfully negotiated a perilous seven-hour descent from its Rosetta mother ship on to the irregular nucleus of Comet 67P.
Scientists at ESA mission headquarters erupted in applause shortly after 4pm GMT as a radio signal from Philae 511m km away confirmed that the washing-machine-sized probe had reached the surface.
“The lander is talking to us
” said an emotional Stephan Ulamec
Philae manager
after the first signal came through. “We are extremely relieved to be safely on the surface of the et
especially given the extra challenge of the et’s unusual shape and unexpectedly hazardous surface
” he added. “In the next hours we’ll learn exactly where and how we’ve landed
and we’ll start getting as much science as we can from the surface of this fascinating world.”
“着陆器在跟我们说话，”“飞来号”主管史蒂芬•乌拉美克(Stephan Ulamec)在第一个信号传来后激动的表示，“得知着陆器已安全抵达彗星表面，我们彻底松了一口气，特别是在这颗彗星的形状不同寻常且表面意外危险的情况下，”他补充称：“未来几个小时，我们将搞清楚它是在哪里着陆以及如何着陆的，我们将开始从这个迷人世界的表面获得尽可能多的科学数据。”
Philae separated from Rosetta at 9am on Wednesday morning. ESA scientists had dubbed Philae’s descent to the et “seven hours of terror” – an echo of the “seven minutes of terror” endured by their Nasa counterparts before the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars in 2012.
If anything
the Philae landing was even more perilous. While Curiosity dropped on to a relatively smooth Martian surface
Philae landed on a duck-shaped lump of ice
dust and rock just 4km wide
strewn with boulders and shooting out unpredictable jets of gas.
Before the landing
mission managers said anchoring would be needed because 67P’s gravitational pull is too weak to hold Philae firmly in place. After touchdown they discovered that Philae had landed without its harpoons firing successfully.
Philae will start scientific investigations of the et immediately. Various instruments will look at the physics and chemistry of the surface
while drills extract subsurface samples and deliver them to the probe’s onboard laboratory for further analysis.
Scientists are looking forward eagerly to the results because etary material is believed to have changed little since the formation of the solar system 4.5bn years ago.
Although the initial science phase will last for just three days – the lifetime of Philae’s primary batteries – mission scientists hope its solar panels will enable it to study the change in conditions for a few months as it approaches the sun
heating up and being ever more active.
“Rosetta is trying to answer the very big questions about the history of our Solar System
” said Matt Taylor
Rosetta project scientist. “What were the conditions like at its infancy and how did it evolve? What role did ets play in this evolution? How do ets work?”