A SPACECRAFT containing a miniature laboratory designed by Oxfordshire scientists has landed on a comet more than 300 million miles away.
The spider-like lander Philae parted company with its orbiting Rosetta mothership at 9.05am yesterday and touched down on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko seven hours later.
The comet is a 2.5 mile-wide lump of ice and dust hurtling through space at around 40,000 mph.
The Rosetta mission is mapping the structure of the comet in unprecedented detail.
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Flight director Andrea Accomazzo said: “We’ve been living and flying together for 10 years now.
The lander contains a miniature laboratory, and the tiny chemical analysis instrument was designed and built by RAL Space, the Open University and staff at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Harwell Oxford.
The lander’s probe is being powered by lithium-ion batteries provided by ABSL Space Products, of Culham Laboratory, near Abingdon.
- See the video of the landing at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktrtvCvZb28
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