The Rosetta Mission (feat. Matt Taylor)

Last week, we witnessed an amazing technology feat. After 10 years in space, (see the timeline here) Rosetta space probe released a lander module Philae. Philae landed on a comet 67P and sent us first close up pictures of the comet. Unfortunately, the scientists didn’t include the Energizer bunny, nor its batteries and for now the lander has ran out of juice. To our dismay, it landed in shade. The probe sent some data back. We were hoping for more. However, there is still a chance that Philae can rotate its solar panels or get some sunlight when it gets closer to the sun. Here you can read detailed description of the mission . There are many firsts and the scientific bounty, we expect, can shed light on the origin of life on Earth. Truly amazing! ESA, the European Space Agency, made a movie about it, called ‘Ambition’.

However, all that is not as important as the attire of one of the scientist. Matt Taylor (@mggtTaylor) was interviewed by BBC wearing a shirt, which caused Rose Eveleth (‏@roseveleth) emotional distress and in order relieve it, she Tweeted ‘No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt.’ The offending video is here. This message caught many people by surprise. Especially Matt. Matt is a strange guy. Matt is a rocket scientist. One of his shortcomings is that he has very short memory; Matt even had to tattoo the mission on his leg to remind himself every morning about his job. Fortunately for Rose, she didn’t check Matt’s Twitter feed, where he is sporting a t-shirt with a slogan: ‘I want to be on you’ in reference to either Ron Burgundy, or to the comet 67P, or both.

So now, if you are wondering why Philae didn’t land properly, why the harpoons didn’t secure the lander to the surface, or why its solar panels are not pointing to the sun. It is because Matt was busy changing his shirt and apologizing to Rose. Rose happily Tweeted ‘ Glad to hear @mggtTaylor recognized his mistake & apologized (live stream isn’t working for me) and we can both move along with our lives.’

Thanks to Matt and his stupid shirt, we still don’t know how life happened on Earth.