A spacecraft will try to land on a comet tomorrow
Three hundred million miles from Earth, the European Space Agency will try to make history tomorrow by landing a spacecraft on a comet.
As part of a 10-year ESA project, the Rosetta spacecraft has been orbiting and studying a 20-trillion-pound space rock in recent months, Wired reports. The comet is called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Later tonight, Rosetta will release its lander craft Philae toward Agilkia, the 67P landing site. If all goes according to plan, mission controllers will know of a successful landing at 11:02 a.m. EST. Watch the action unfold tomorrow on ESA's livestream.
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
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