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Philae Comet Lander Recorded Itself Landing on Comet 67P, But Only the Audio (HEAR IT)

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It was only a couple seconds, but a newly released audio clip has let the general public know exactly what a satellite landing on a comet sounds like.

According to the Washington Post, the Philae lander captured the sound with its Cometary Acoustic Surface Sounding Experiment (CASSE) sensors on the "feet" of its three "legs." The interstellar crunch had scientists intrigued, as the vibrations could be measured to learn more a about Comet 67P/CG's composition.

"The Philae lander came into contact with a soft layer several centimeters thick. Then, just milliseconds later, the feet encountered a hard, perhaps icy layer on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko," Klaus Seidensticker, a Philae project researcher, said in a statement. "From our data, we can determine that no second landing occurred immediately after the first bounce."

Initial data from the landing attempt showed evidence that Philae's harpoons did not deploy properly and the lander bounced off the surface before hooking in.

The landing was the culmination over more than 10 years of work to get the Rosetta satellite deep enough into space to rendezvouses with its target. The European Space Agency became the first ever to land a spacecraft on a comet.

According to Space.com, PBS aired a documentary on the historic mission Wednesday night, only about a week after the fact.

"'To Catch a Comet' follows the international team of scientists and engineers who guide Rosetta through the last year of its ten-year trajectory across the universe: around the Earth, around Mars, and twice through the asteroid belt to reach its destination," PBS representatives said in a statement. "In the nail-biting months before the landing, the team awakens Rosetta from three years of power-saving hibernation, manually navigates the craft through unexplored areas of the solar system, catches up to Comet 67P in a delicate cat-and-mouse orbiting dance, and releases a washing-machine-sized lander (named Philae) onto the comet's surface."

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