Landing on a Comet

We went to a local museum's event to celebrate the landing of Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We heard afterward that they estimated they had only a 22% chance of the lander successfully making it onto the comet's surface. Yet they did it! With technology that is already ten years old!

Although the lander ran out of power (it ended up in a place where it couldn't access enough of the sun's rays to recharge itself), it sent back interesting information. The comet appears to have a dusty, rocky surface with a layer of very hard ice under that. Also, the lander detected organic molecules. And because it's in a shady spot, it will last longer than expected as the comet approaches the sun in 2015. Here's hoping Philae wakes up then and gives us some more interesting data!