'My New Address: 67P' Lander Tweets

ESA's Philae lander has touched down on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The European Space Agency confirmed the touchdown at around 11 a.m. EST Wednesday.

ESA sent a message on Twitter announcing "Receipt of signal from surface" shortly after the landing.

The landing 300 million miles from Earth culminates a 10-year journey for the Philae spacecraft. The message from the comet confirming the landing took 28 minutes to reach Earth, according to a report from the Associated Press.

The Philae spacecraft was programmed to send out tweets automatically when it landed. A tweet went out in several languages that said "Touchdown! My new address: 67P"

Video of the event was sent back to Earth from the Rosetta spacecraft that carried the Philae lander to the comet.

Philae had to harpoon the comet to facilitate the landing. "I know it sounds like something out of Moby Dick, but when you think about the gravity field of a comet, it makes a lot of sense to harpoon one," said Art Chmielewski, project manager for the U.S. participation in Rosetta, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"Comet 67P has approximately 100,000 times less gravity than Earth does. So, if you don't want to float away, you have to go to extraordinary measures to attach yourself to its dusty surface. The Philae lander has two harpoons, shock-absorbing landing gear, and a drill located on each of the lander's three feet. It even has a small, upward-firing rocket engine. All this to help keep it on the surface."

(Images provided by ESA)

FMI: www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Live_updates_Rosetta_mission_comet_landing