Probe lands on comet in space first: ESA
The robot lab landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko around seven hours after separating from its mother ship Rosetta more than 510 million kilometres (320 million miles) from Earth, it said.
"Philae is talking to us," said Stephan Ulamec, the lander's manager. "We are on the comet."
"We definitely confirm that the lander is on the surface," said Andrea Accomazzo, flight operations director. "We can't be happier than what we we are now."
"This is a big step for human civilisation," said the agency's director general, Jean-Jacques Dordain, as a crowd of scientists, guests and VIPs cheered and applauded in relief.
"Touchdown! My new address: 67P!," Philae's team tweeted.
Scientists hope the lander, equipped with 10 instruments, will unlock the secrets of comets - primordial clusters of ice and dust that may have helped sow life on Earth.
Getting from Earth to a comet that is travelling towards the Sun at 18 kilometres per second (11 miles per second) was a landmark in space engineering and celestial mathematics.
The 1.3-billion-euro ($1.6-billion) Rosetta mission was approved in 1993.
Rosetta, carrying Philae, was hoisted into space in 2004, and took more than a decade to reach its target in August this year, having used the gravitational pull of Earth and Mars as slingshots to build up speed.
The pair covered 6.5 billion km together before the separation Wednesday prior to the landing.
.@ESA_Rosetta See for yourself! ROLIS imaged #67P when we were just 3km away! Glad I can share. #CometLanding pic.twitter.com/b6mcid2fsn
— Philae Lander (@Philae2014) November 12, 2014
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Every year many many astroids come closer to earth and one may hit us also, just like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. Just a few months back, one astroid came came very close to us, just half the distance between earth and moon. What landing on an astroid would do is that, one day it may give us the ability to deflect astroids away from its trajectory and save the earth. Scientists can predict the path of the astroids many years ahead. Spacecrafts can land on astroids and its rockets can steer them away from its path of hitting the earth.
It is amazing what scientists have achieved through the simple principle of questioning and investigating.
These are the type of things humanity should invest more in. There are so many opportunities.
A significant and great achievement by humanity!
Huge, huge achievement. US should have been the first. Don't know how the Europeans beat us. It is far more complicated than landing on Moon or Mars. Congratulations to this team on this huge achievement.