Summary of The Discovery That Proved Scientists Wrong

00:00:00 - 00:20:00

The Rosetta-Philae spacecraft was able to land on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and make some impressive discoveries. However, one part of the mission did not go as planned and Philae was not able to last long on the comet's surface. Scientists were surprised to find that the comet was much more active than they thought, with a complex carbon-based material making up its surface. They also found that the comet had no magnetic field and that the solar wind interacts with the comet's atmosphere to create a sound.

• 00:00:00 The Rosetta-Philae spacecraft was able to land on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and make some impressive discoveries. However, one part of the mission did not go as planned and Philae was not able to last long on the comet's surface.
• 00:05:00 After visiting Lutetia, the spacecraft went into hibernation mode until 2014 when it started to approach the 4.5 km wide comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the first time. After a number of burns with the onboard thrusters, they aligned the trajectory of Rosetta with the trajectory of the comet. As Rosetta approached, these fantastic images started to come in, and they surprised everyone. The comet seemed to actually be a contact binary, full of jagged edges and sharp sides, cliffs, valleys and crevasses. It's a breathtaking sight to behold, and is really a lot more interesting looking than anyone had previously thought. But, upon seeing these images, mission planners collectively thought "how are we going to land on this?!" You see, the Rosetta-Philae mission has two parts, the orbiter, Rosetta, or the mothership of this mission, and a much smaller lander probe, Philae. Mission planners wanted Philae to land on the surface in order to closely examine the materials making up the comet with a variety of different scientific instruments. They couldn't afford to have it fall over on its back upon landing, thus not providing any scientific data about this special object. So, the first
• 00:10:00 Scientists were wrong about the surface of Comet 67P, which is much softer and more porous than they thought. They also found 16 different organic compounds on the comet, which could be related to the presence of life.
• 00:15:00 The comet 67P was found to be much more active than expected, containing complex carbon-based material mixed with sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, calcium and iron. This material is unlike that of asteroids, which have been stripped of hydrogen by the Sun. Comets, on the other hand, have been kept away from the inner solar system for a longer time, meaning these dust samples are pristine relics from the formation of the solar system. Oxygen was unexpectedly found in the comet's atmosphere, along with carbon and hydrogen. These findings suggest that comets were not the source of water on Earth as previously thought.
• 00:20:00 After Rosetta and Philae flew to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and landed on it, the mission revealed that the comet had no magnetic field and that the solar wind interacts with the comet's atmosphere to create a sound.