Today in the history of astronomy, a lander descends to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in a space exploration first.

| Published: November 12, 2026

The Philae lander took about seven hours to descend from Rosetta to the comet surface. Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera shot this image of the lander nearly two hours after separation. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission launched March 2, 2004, on a 4-billion-mile (6.4 billion kilometers) path to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The mission consisted of the Rosetta orbiter and the Philae lander, both designed for in-depth study of the comet. The spacecraft arrived at 67P/C-G on Aug. 6, 2014, and began orbiting the body a month later; on Nov. 12, 2014, the Philae lander descended to the comet surface.…