Today, ten years after its launch and at the end of a 4 billion mile journey, the Rosetta spacecraft successfully landed its Philae probe on a comet. The latter was traveling at 85,000 miles per hour and the rendezvous occurred 311 million miles from Planet Earth. Scientists hope to learn more about the birth of our solar system from data collected on the comet's surface.
This stunning achievement is the culmination of a project that began long before liftoff and, of course, owes its success to the knowledge that we humans have accumulated over more than five centuries. Few would deny that this feat is just the latest in a long history of monumental scientific achievements, all of which have drawn from our understanding of the laws of nature.
Yet, many who applaud the success of the Rosetta mission remain unwilling to accept the scientific evidence of global warming. Whether motivated by religion, politics or personal interests, they choose to ignore (if not ridicule) science when it threatens their belief system or their economic welfare. While the new knowledge gained from the surface of a comet will help to clarify the nature of our planet's origin, opposition to the science of climate change will undermine efforts to understand its future.
