Follow Rosetta on Twitter

Following a ten year journey through space, the Rosetta spacecraft landed on a comet’s surface yesterday. The European Space Operations Centre has made extensive use of Twitter to keep the public up to date with the mission and its findings.

Rosetta is the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the Sun, and deploy a lander to its surface. The robotic space probe, built and launched by ESA, the European Space Agency, has already performed a detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The spacecraft arrived at the comet on 6 August 2014 following a 10-year journey through the Solar System. Since then the Rosetta spacecraft has orbited the comet and gathered data to characterise the environment and the comet nucleus. Yesterday, November 12, 2014, Rosetta’s lander Philae land on the surface. Philae carries a suite of instruments for imaging and sampling the comet nucleus.

The mission is controlled from ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), in Darmstadt, Germany. It is an ESA mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. Rosetta’s Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by DLR and MPS (Germany), CNES (France) and ASI (Italy). Scientists claim that this mission is more complex than landing on the moon.

The mission can now be followed from moment to moment via Twitter. Use the following to keep tabs:

1. Hashtags

‚óè #CometLanding

‚óè #Rosetta

‚óè #67p

2. Official accounts

‚óè @ESA_Rosetta (lead account)

‚óè @Philae2014 (Rosetta’s comet lander Philae)

‚óè @ESA (ESA’s main corporate channel)

‚óè @ESAscience (ESA’s Science and Robotic Exploration channel)

‚óè @ESAOperations (ESA Spaceflight Operations channel)

‚óè https://twitter.com/ESA_de/lists/esa-rosetta-on-twitter (official list of around 50 ESA channels)

How to engage with the mission:

‚óè Tweet or ask questions on Twitter about the mission

‚óè Send your “good luck tweets” and follow @ESA_Rosetta & @Philae2014 for updates

Why Twitter? Exclusive content about the mission:

‚óè Highlight: dialogue between @ESA_Rosetta & @Philae2014

‚óè @ESA_Rosetta live tweeting the event (1st person) – sharing photos, infographics, vines, videos, gifs

‚óè 1st photo of lander descent = Twitter exclusive

‚óè 1st photo of landing/comet surface = Twitter exclusive

‚óè Vines of mission

‚óè Vine statements of ESA chief scientists and discoverer of Rosetta

‚óè Twitter Q/A with Rosetta Project Scientist Matt Taylor

Livestream:

‚óè ESA TV will be live streaming throughout the mission at http://new.livestream.com/ESA/Cometlanding

Additional information:

Essential information and channels on ESA’s Rosetta mission:

‚óè http://rosetta.esa.int Rosetta landing page, this is where the main live stream will be embedded

‚óè http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/ Rosetta mission blog with in-depth information

‚óè http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta Classic web special

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