It's over. After orbiting the duck-shaped comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for 786 days, the Rosetta spacecraft has landed on its surface and turned off its instruments for good. The landing was confirmed at around 7:20AM ET as signals from the probe's instruments ended.
"I can announce full descent and I declare, hereby, that the mission has ended for Rosetta," said ESA mission manager Patrick Martin. "The Rosetta mission was inspiring to many. Historic and pioneering, and it revolutionized we understand comets and the Solar System. Farewell Rosetta, you've done the job that was space science at its best."
LOSS OF SIGNAL #LOS European Space Agency confirms end of contact w/ @ESA_Rosetta. Operations complete at 720mn km from Earth #CometLanding http://pic.twitter.com/ehzQ5gMf1W
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) September 30, 2016
Rosetta went down swinging though, sending back images and data all the way from its slow descent. Landing on the comet on this way wasn't part of the mission's original plan, but was engineered to take full advantage of the opportunities available. Rosetta's final landing spot was in a deep pit lined with "positive relief features" — meter-sized goosebumps that are thought to be some of the original icy boulders that helped form the comet some 4 billion years ago.
While Rosetta is no longer transmitting data back to Earth, scientists say there will be "decades" more work to do on the information it's already collected.
Developing...
Mission complete #CometLanding http://pic.twitter.com/m3oxRNPzPI
— ESA Rosetta Mission (@ESA_Rosetta) September 30, 2016
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