The Rosetta landing: Could the mysterious comet explain the origin of Earth’s life?

After 10 years and four billion miles, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft is ready to make history Wednesday when it launches its lander onto the surface of an icy, mysterious comet.

At about 3:35 am EST on Wednesday, Rosetta will release the Philae lander at a distance of about 22.5 km above the comet’s surface.

During the descent, which has been described as seven hours of terror by mission planners, the oven-sized probe, will attempt to continually communicate with is mothership.

Survival is not guaranteed as there may be multitude of technological and environmental conditions it will have to overcome to safely touch down.

But if all go as planned, Philae will reach the comet’s surface at about 10:35 am EST Wednesday, and moor itself to the four-kilometre-wide, duck-shaped nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko using harpoons and anchors. If, however, the ground is too hard, the probe could just bounce off the surface. Too many boulders and it could topple over. And because the gravity is weak, it may not be able to anchor itself properly.

But if it does make it in one piece, Philae will immediately begin to analyze the ice, organic material and chemicals that make up the comet’s nucleus. The on-board batteries will allow it to conduct science experiments for up to three days. However, if its solar panels function properly and don’t get covered with cometary dust, its life may be extended for months and well into 2015.

And there is a vital Canadian connection to the mission, too. A Saskatoon company has built the three ground antenna stations in Argentina, Spain and Australia that the European Space Agency uses to communicate with the Rosetta spacecraft, according to a Canadian Press report.

What has astronomers so giddy is that Rosetta represents not only the first attempt at a soft-landing onto the surface of a comet, but also the first time they will get a chance to touch and and taste one of these ancient objects believed to be remnants from the time the solar system was born.

“The main new thing here is the ability to directly sample the surface material using a nine-inch drill, and to analyze that material using a series of experiments looking at the chemicals present,” said planetary scientist and mission planner Stanley Cowley, of the University of Leicester in England in a press statement today.

“The wider context is that comets, like 67P/C-G, represent bodies which were ‘left over’, essentially unprocessed, from the formation of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. It is therefore an interesting relic from that otherwise inaccessible epoch.”

These giant icy, snowballs may also hold the key in our understanding of where Earth’s water and even life may have originated, Cowley says.

“Comet impacts are thought to have been one of the principal means by which water was delivered to the early Earth, around 3.6 billion years ago, possibly contributing half the water in our oceans,” he added.

“Furthermore, the comet material is also known to contain simple organic molecules which may also have seeded Earth with the material from which life emerged.”

NASA TV plans on providing live coverage of the Rosetta mission’s scheduled landing of its Philae probe starting at 9 am EST.