Rosetta

Now I stared at the stars as a kid, I do so still as an adult whenever I get the chance. I know the names of more than a handful and their constellations, and, like old friends, almost instinctively where to
find them in the sky. I feel the poetry in the realisation that the starlight we see is ancient history by the time it graces our eyes. I understand the pull of the moon on the tides I sail, and I understand
that this ancient starlight can tell me where those tides have taken us, even if I've yet to learn how.

That's pretty much it for me and astronomy. However admiring I may be from afar, I'm a complete layman.

We, the human race, have in this last week just reached out four billion miles across space to land an object the size of my washing machine on a rubber duck shaped lump of rock hurtling through the void at 40,000 mph.

Tell me that isn't pretty damned cool. Whatever the cost and whatever else we might or might not get out of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30038871