The Philae lander is scheduled to touch down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014 at 15:35 UTC. We on Earth – 300 million miles (500 million km) away – won’t know the lander has set down successfully until a signal is received back at about 16:02 UTC. Both NASA and ESA will provide live online coverage of this first-ever attempted landing on a comet.
The final stage of the mission — actually landing the probe on the comet — has been described as “seven hours of terror” by a scientist involved with the project, and that terror is about to begin.
Here are some times to pay attention to, if you want to watch the event live.
– Overall, NASA’s live coverage is from 1400 to 1630 UTC
– NASA’s live commentary will include excerpts of the ESA coverage from 1400 to 1500 UTC
– NASA will continue carrying ESA’s commentary from 1500 UTC to 16:30 UTC
Translate UTC to your time zone here.
– ESA’s live coverage begins on Tuesday, November 11, a day before the landing, at 1900 UTC. Watch ESA’s coverage here.
Rosetta spacecraft will do the equivalent of transferring an object from one speeding bullet to another, when it tries to place its Philae lander on its comet. Read more about the mission’s dramatic attempt to land on a comet here.
After landing, Philae will obtain the first images ever taken from a comet’s surface. It also will drill into the surface to study the composition and witness close up how a comet changes as its exposure to the sun varies.
Philae can remain active on the surface for approximately two-and-a-half days. Its “mothership” – the Rosetta spacecraft – will remain in orbit around the comet through 2015. The orbiter will continue detailed studies of the comet as it approaches the sun for its July 2015 perihelion (closest point), and then moves away.
Comets are considered primitive building blocks of the solar system that are literally frozen in time. They may have played a part in “seeding” Earth with water and, possibly, the basic ingredients for life.
Here’s the link for NASA’s coverage: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
Here’s the link for ESA’s coverage: http://www.esa.int/rosetta
