Updated
The Rosetta spacecraft has crashed-landed, as planned, on
the comet it has been chasing for 12 years, bringing to an end an
ambitious mission that has provided insight into the early days of the
solar system and captured the public's imagination.
Confirmation
of the end of the mission arrived at ESA's control centre in Darmstadt,
Germany at 11:19am GMT (9:19pm AEST), with the loss of Rosetta's signal
upon impact.Scientists at the control centre clapped and hugged after screens showed the loss of signal.
The ambitious Rosetta mission set out to discover — and eventually confirmed — that dusty, icy comets contain the key ingredients to kickstart life on Earth.
It took 12 years, but Rosetta travelled the 6 billion kilometres needed to catch up with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Two years ago, scientists managed to land a probe on the comet's surface, which was travelling at more than 100,000 kilometres per hour.
But the mothership Rosetta lost power as the comet moved away from the sun.
Rosetta also has been subjected to the harsh radiation and extreme temperatures of space since launching in March 2004 and was unlikely to last much longer.
The craft was programmed to terminate its historic quest this evening, when it was fired into the comet and shut down, losing contact with Earth.
Photo:
The last image taken by Rosetta, 51 metres before it crash-landed. (Twitter: ESA Rosetta Mission)
Rosetta completed its free-fall descent at the speed of a sedate walk, joining the probe Philae, which landed on the comet in November 2014 in what was considered a remarkable feat of precision space travel.
"We want to go out at the peak of capability. We don't want a comeback tour that's rubbish. We will end in a very rock-and-roll fashion," project scientist Matt Taylor said ahead of the final descent.The descent gave Rosetta the opportunity to study the comet's gas, dust and plasma environment, and take high-resolution photos, close to its surface — this information was returned to Earth before impact.
"Thank you Rosetta," ESA director general Jan Woerner tweeted after the landing was confirmed.
He was among some 300 people who had also gathered before dawn at a conference room at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, to watch a live webcast as Rosetta's signal disappeared from monitors, simultaneously with the team in Germany.
"It was a good ending," Klaus Schiling, who worked on mission planning for Rosetta 27 years ago with prime contractor Airbus, said at the Mexico space conference.
"There were so many ups and downs with this mission."
'The science will continue for many years'
The mission has already collected a treasure trove of information that will keep scientists busy for the next decade."We've just scratched the surface of the science. We're ending the mission, but the science will continue for many years," Dr Taylor said.
The mission has managed several historic firsts, including getting a spacecraft into orbit around a comet and the unprecedented landing of a probe on the surface of a comet.
A handful of previous spacecraft snapped pictures and collected data as they flew past their targets.
But, dashing hopes for more discoveries, Philae, the 100-kilogram probe, bounced several times on landing before getting stuck against a cliff wall, leaving it unable to perform any more experiments beyond its first three days on the comet after its solar-powered batteries ran out.
Rosetta's cameras located Philae's resting place just a few weeks ago.
Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said the images sent back from the Rosetta mission were "as powerful as Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon".
Data collected by Rosetta and lander Philae, which reached the surface in November 2014, is already helping scientists better understand how the Earth and other planets formed.
For example, scientists now believe that asteroids, not comets, were primarily responsible for delivering water to Earth and other planets in the inner solar system, possibly setting the stage for life.
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