5:00 PM Italian time. The Philae probe of the European Rosetta spacecraft touches down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The harpoons fail to activate, it bounces for hundreds of meters, and after two hours, at 5:26 PM, it touches down again, bounces again, and finally, at 5:33 PM, it settles back on the comet’s surface, where it will remain. The feat is epic and never before attempted. We have arrived on a comet.
