Historic Rosetta probe goes silent, thumps down on comet

(Image credit: DANIEL ROLAND/AFP/Getty Images)

published 30 September 2016

After more than a decade of observing comets in the cosmos, the historic Rosetta spacecraft executed a planned crash on Comet 67P around 7:20 a.m. Eastern time. While the touchdown was a gentle two miles per hour, the probe was never designed to land and its intentional crash cut off transmissions to Earth.

While researchers had determined Rosetta's mission had come to an end as it followed Comet 67P to the outer leg of its orbit, taking the probe away from the sun, its power source, Rosetta leaves behind overwhelming amounts of data that still need to be analyzed. The probe was the first to orbit a comet and it opened up a new era of understanding how the rock and ice bodies are tied to the universe's origins.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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