So yesterday I installed a new theme for my blog and I think it looks pretty good.  The text is a bit big but I’ll fix that later.

What I did want to post about is how awesome it was that the ESA landed Philae onto comet 67P. It’s a huge feat for humanity and certainly an exciting time for science as comets are remnants from the birth of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago so who knows what we may learn. 🙂 Andrew sent me this really cool animation that shows Rosetta’s path from the planet from launch till the near future.

The European Space Agency’s Philae lander performed not one, not two but three historic landings yesterday. That’s according to data downloaded overnight from the spacecraft that confirms Philae bounced twice as it settled down on to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

ESA has just released Philae’s first photo from the surface, later than expected due to landing complications. Readings from the probe suggest Philae initially touched down at 1533 GMT yesterday, with mission managers at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, receiving the confirmation signal on Earth around half an hour later. But data from the probe’s magnetometer shows Philae also landed at 1726 GMT and 1733 GMT, bouncing off the surface due to the comet’s weak gravity, around 10,000th that of Earth’s.
Source: NewScientist

It’s so exciting to think about what we can learn from this comet and I hope it motivates the governments of the world to further space exploration.