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Amazing job! This might be a silly question but are their any ideas as to the actual real world benefits we could see from this? The director-general of the ESA

Amazing job! This might be a silly question but are their any ideas as to the actual real world benefits we could see from this? The director-general of the ESA said "This is a big step for human civilisation" so I presume there is some idea of what they expect to gain from this mission? Edit: Thanks for all the replies! I'm at work now but will take a look at them this evening.

harywilke 12y ago
i watched a docu on the large hadron collider and the search for the higgs boson particle where they asked one of the scientists a similar question. what do you expect to gain monitarily from that xBillion dollars we just spent on this? his reply was 'i don't know'. he went on to give the example of how when radio waves were first discovered nobody called them 'radio waves' because no one had thought to use them in that way yet. I think a lot of exploritory science can be framed this way. we do it to get a better understanding of the world we live in.
- corin_ 12y ago
  Reminds me of a great conversation in The West Wing (one of the best written shows ever made, in my opinion). A senator (ENLOW) has put an anonymous hold on building a supercollider, the white house deputy communications director (SAM) wants to help his old professor (MILLGATE) get the budget approved for it, and this is near the end of the episode: ENLOW I'm a Democrat, Sam. How's a 20 billion dollar astronomy lecture gonna help the President get elected? SAM It won't. "We've discovered a seamless, intellectual framework for the universe" isn't a good 30-second spot. ENLOW If only we could only say what benefit this thing has, but no one's been able to do that. MILLGATE That's because great achievement has no road map. The X-ray's pretty good. So is penicillin. Neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And now, we have an entire world run by electronics. Haydn and Mozart never studied the classics. They couldn't. They invented them. SAM Discovery. MILLGATE What? SAM That's the thing that you were... Discovery is what. That's what this is used for. It's for discovery. (I tried to find a clip, because Sorkin's writing is even more beautiful when acted by Rob Lowe.. but can't on YouTube.)
  - character0 12y ago
    A similarly great West Wing clip about exploration re: Mars mission. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGK96-WixU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGK96-WixU "The history of man is hung on the timeline of exploration and this is what's next."
    - corin_ 12y ago
      Heh, watched that when looking for the scene I pasted, as I couldn't remember which of those "what's the point of this science" episodes was the one with the quote I wanted - what an amazing show. Need to rewatch again soon.
the_rosentotter 12y ago
Probably 'just' the achievement of catching a speeding comet and landing on it. The comet itself doesn't seem all that interesting.
- flexie 12y ago
  Comets are thought to be remains of the frozen cloud of gas/dust that our solar system was created from. So the hope is we can learn about the creation of our solar system. On top of that it's the biggest acchievement of the European Space Agency. And landing on a 4 km small rock 500,000,000 km from Earth after 12 years of travelling is in itself remarkable.
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Ice from Jupiter-class comet supposed to be what seeded Earth with water billions of years ago. Want to see what chemicals are there etc.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  I get that part but what tangible benefits will I/humanity see from it? Or is it more of a case of gaining more knowledge about how the Universe works in the hope that that knowledge combined with other knowledge may lead to something eventually?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - gambiting 12y ago
    This is how all science has always worked. Peasants were probably upset once that nobleman would spend their money on playing with mould in glass containers(what good could possibly come out of it????), rather than buy them food or clothing, yet that's how penicillin(and countless other drugs) came about. Do you think every inventor in history had a crystal clear idea what they were inventing and how was it going to change the world? Think about this as our R&D department - it has to get some money to keep pushing us forward. And not everything is done as a benefit/loss game - I would personally invest significant time and money into finding out how the universe came about, even if such knowledge doesn't do anything for starving children in Nigeria. However, the beauty of it is that you on the other hand can go and spend YOUR time and YOUR money on whatever YOU please. As for public spending - if you don't like it, go and vote.
  - john_b 12y ago
    Space exploration is not for you. Your tax share of this mission, depending on where you live, is either zero or nearly zero. Asking for personal benefits from a space probe is silly. However, your children, and their children, and so on will likely see benefits from it. The future is impossible to predict, however, so nobody can say what they will be. The principal benefit of missions like this is the new knowledge they generate. That knowledge is then the intellectual heritage of humanity for eternity, and can be used for any number of inventions, benefits, and future discoveries. You are thinking too small. Even if somehow nothing ever comes of this mission, this is the sort of thing that humanity does not because it has survival value, but because it gives value to survival.
avz 12y ago
Improved understanding of our solar system, its history and our place in the universe is a real benefit that soon will be available for anyone. Comets are generally very old, so can enable us to learn a lot about solar system's history. Achieving engineering capabilities required to land on comets is a step forward for human civilization. I consider the above to be actual real world benefits. If they are not, I'm not sure where the boundary of the real world is and where the imaginary world begins.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  Thanks. I would definitely consider the second point a real world benefit but if we are going to spend over $1bn to learn about the solar system's history I take it we are hoping to discover something that actually has benefits to humanity (e.g. when the money could have had more immediate impacts treating disease or helping the poor etc.). Don't get me wrong I'm all for these kinds of missions I just thought that to get that kind of funding the scientists would have had to put forward a list of possible things they might learn which could benefit humanity in the short term to help justify the cost. I'm basically looking for the idiots list of why we should spend so much money on this. Edit: Several downvotes even though I tried to make it clear I'm FOR this kind of spending. My problem is basically how do you explain to someone on the street why spending $1bn on a mission to a comet is worth it when we don't know what benefits it will bring.
  - tmmm 12y ago
    Trying to find answers to the most important questions is much more important than saving a few thousand people now. Plus, we'll probably need to leave Earth one day, and before that we need to know how.
  - grey-area 12y ago
    If you want to talk about spending priorities, how about the folly of the Iraq war, trident, etc. those cost huge amounts more than this mission? Not everyone has the same priorities as you. Thank goodness at least some of our money is spent on things which might benefit humanity in the long term, like discovering how the solar system was formed or whether life was formed on earth or elsewhere.
NickPollard 12y ago
It's mostly about understanding our solar system and how it formed - comets supposedly contain a lot of early material and could be key to understanding the formation of various parts of the system. Some believe that water or other materials from comets were fundamental in the origination of life here on Earth. It also gives us more understanding on the material composition of the rest of space - which might be of more practical use once we start mining space, for example.
hobofan 12y ago
I am sure that companies like Planetary Recources (and anyone who wants to make refueling in space possible) will greatly benefit from the discoveries made during this mission.
fit2rule 12y ago
Real world benefit? In 20 years, we move the production capacity of China to space, and everyone, anywhere on the Earth, has the ability to order a product, remotely assembled on our comet moon, for direct delivery. sigh A man can dream.
- saraid216 12y ago
  It would honestly be faster to ship it overseas.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    I'm quite fine with putting stuff in a holding LEO with robots and having it sit there, waiting for delivery by parachute to my pals and I while we sit in the bliss of an industry-free paradise here on Earth. If we move all the poisonous things to space, where it belongs, we make a better Earth. You bet I'd love to be designing package delivery systems which bring me my new softhard from space. Put all manufacturing on a comet, use its resources (which are plenty) with robot bases, send the result back to a recovering ecosphere, the only one of its kind, here on Earth.
    - saraid216 12y ago
      > the bliss of an industry-free paradise here on Earth See, that's what you should've mentioned the first time. :P I'm cool with that dream. I just thought you were hoping to get stuff faster by dropping it on our heads.
masklinn 12y ago
The lander's mission is: > elemental, isotopic, molecular and mineralogical composition of the cometary material, the characterization of physical properties of the surface and subsurface material, the large-scale structure and the magnetic and plasma environment of the nucleus Amongst other things, they'll be looking for complex organic molecules.
sktrdie 12y ago
Apart from discovering the unknown and adding to the body of knowledge facts about an object that we currently know nothing about, "comets are thought to have delivered a vast quantity of water to Earth, and they may have also seeded Earth with organic molecules" [1] which means that they might hold important clues to how life started here on Earth. Realistically this could have potential future benefits to things we can't even phantom about today - perhaps such discoveries about the origins of life could lead to fundamental innovations in human health. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(spacecraft)#Search_for_organic_compounds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(spacecraft)#Search_for...
valarauca1 12y ago
The actual real world benefits of Space Flight are strange. For example the Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the moon, that allowed us to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war (obviously sarcasm). Instead it gave us seemly random things, that we were looking for, but are beneficial nonetheless and some which may not come out right away. The Apollo Mission gave us ASICs, Cordless Tools, CAT scan, Ear Thermometer, Smoke Detector, Shoe insoles, carbon based water filters, satellite television (boardcasted, not passive reflected), Scratch resistant lenses. These things aren't why we went to the moon. Inventing them kinda just happened to see the program though. Space travel challenges the status quo of technology. Its really REALLY hard. So when ever we (humans) do it, we face new problems, and our solutions sometimes have effects for those on earth.
- noir_lord 12y ago
  Not to mention inspiring generations. I wouldn't be a programmer with the space program, it inspired a life long love of science and technology.
- tripzilch 12y ago
  > For example the Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the moon, that allowed us to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war (obviously sarcasm). Sarcasm aside, this is more due to Geneva Conventions rather than actual lack of Death Crystals on the moon.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure if we had found Death Crystals on the moon we would have figured out a way to synthesize and weaponize them on earth.
brianpgordon 12y ago
Check out this gif of the orbital maneuvers required for Rosetta to reach its destination: https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif This probably won't be very impressive in a few hundred years, but for now it's a remarkable engineering achievement.
- Cthulhu_ 12y ago
  Please don't use .gifs for videos, :(
ffk 12y ago
There are several benefits gained, both scientifically and politically. Scientific: * Comets may show us early composition of our solar system since they change less than planets. This may help answer questions related to where water came or where DNA/RNA molecules came from. * Lessons learned here will directly contribute to the success of future missions on both mars and the moon * Solar cell technology was directly advanced, helping push forward solar energy Political & Social: * Brings governments closer together These types of missions require a great amount of cooperation and help stabilize and improve the international political landscape. Around 20 countries cooperated in this mission. * Inspire more people to enter science, math and engineering * Increase collaboration of universities and industry, helping close the gap between theoretical and applied science. [edited to fix formatting]
sophacles 12y ago
One thing the other (very good) replies miss: Never underestimate the power of 'gee whiz' technology has on children. This is cool, exciting engineering. Even if the scientific results are "boring", that is to say we don't get any unexpected data, the act of pushing the boundaries of what humans have been able to do is inspirational. There are kids who will learn about this in school the next few days, and see it on the news, and hear grown ups talking about how neat it is, and decide "I want to be an engineer", or "I want to be a scientist". It doesn't take many of them making this decision to have a big, long term impact (which provides a great societal ROI on the mission).
ctdonath 12y ago
"Strange how much human progress and achievement comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim
john_b 12y ago
To pick one example, before the landing it was discovered that the gas jets emitted by the comet interact with the solar wind to produce a unique signal: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/11/12/4126840.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/11/12/4126840.ht... The detailed dynamics are yet to be determined, but since the comet has an orbit that takes it from as close to the sun as Earth and as far away as Jupiter, this signal should change as it travels. Or maybe it doesn't, and if so, that would be a mystery worth investigating. This is a completely unexpected discovery that enables us to study a comet's magnetic field, and how it interacts with the solar wind. Here are some possible benefits just from this one discovery: 1) The instruments necessary to even detect this signal are very impressive by themselves, developing them has probably improved a number of instrumentation technologies on Earth already. 2) The lander's instruments cannot penetrate the surface very far. The fact that this comet even has a magnetic field (however weak) is interesting. It could mean that a significant portion of the comet's interior is composed of iron, nickel, cobalt, or rare earth metals, which would be useful knowledge for people like these: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-mining-venture-backed-by-james-cameron-google-ceo-larry-page/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-mining-venture-backed-b... 3) If future missions to comets find a different type of signal, which in turn leads to a different type of internal composition, the differences in a comet's magnetic field could be used to infer the composition of its interior from a distance, without sending any probes to the surface at all.
mikeash 12y ago
In addition to all the other responses, there's one benefit I haven't seen mentioned yet. In the event that a comet is discovered on a collision course with Earth (an extremely low probability event, but one with enormously bad consequences) then knowing more about the structure and composition of comets would be essential to deflecting it.
joeevans1000 12y ago
Survival of our species.

harywilke 12y ago

i watched a docu on the large hadron collider and the search for the higgs boson particle where they asked one of the scientists a similar question. what do you expect to gain monitarily from that xBillion dollars we just spent on this? his reply was 'i don't know'. he went on to give the example of how when radio waves were first discovered nobody called them 'radio waves' because no one had thought to use them in that way yet. I think a lot of exploritory science can be framed this way. we do it to get a better understanding of the world we live in.

corin_ 12y ago
Reminds me of a great conversation in The West Wing (one of the best written shows ever made, in my opinion). A senator (ENLOW) has put an anonymous hold on building a supercollider, the white house deputy communications director (SAM) wants to help his old professor (MILLGATE) get the budget approved for it, and this is near the end of the episode: ENLOW I'm a Democrat, Sam. How's a 20 billion dollar astronomy lecture gonna help the President get elected? SAM It won't. "We've discovered a seamless, intellectual framework for the universe" isn't a good 30-second spot. ENLOW If only we could only say what benefit this thing has, but no one's been able to do that. MILLGATE That's because great achievement has no road map. The X-ray's pretty good. So is penicillin. Neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And now, we have an entire world run by electronics. Haydn and Mozart never studied the classics. They couldn't. They invented them. SAM Discovery. MILLGATE What? SAM That's the thing that you were... Discovery is what. That's what this is used for. It's for discovery. (I tried to find a clip, because Sorkin's writing is even more beautiful when acted by Rob Lowe.. but can't on YouTube.)
- character0 12y ago
  A similarly great West Wing clip about exploration re: Mars mission. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGK96-WixU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGK96-WixU "The history of man is hung on the timeline of exploration and this is what's next."
  - corin_ 12y ago
    Heh, watched that when looking for the scene I pasted, as I couldn't remember which of those "what's the point of this science" episodes was the one with the quote I wanted - what an amazing show. Need to rewatch again soon.

the_rosentotter 12y ago

Probably 'just' the achievement of catching a speeding comet and landing on it. The comet itself doesn't seem all that interesting.

flexie 12y ago
Comets are thought to be remains of the frozen cloud of gas/dust that our solar system was created from. So the hope is we can learn about the creation of our solar system. On top of that it's the biggest acchievement of the European Space Agency. And landing on a 4 km small rock 500,000,000 km from Earth after 12 years of travelling is in itself remarkable.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Ice from Jupiter-class comet supposed to be what seeded Earth with water billions of years ago. Want to see what chemicals are there etc.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
I get that part but what tangible benefits will I/humanity see from it? Or is it more of a case of gaining more knowledge about how the Universe works in the hope that that knowledge combined with other knowledge may lead to something eventually?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- gambiting 12y ago
  This is how all science has always worked. Peasants were probably upset once that nobleman would spend their money on playing with mould in glass containers(what good could possibly come out of it????), rather than buy them food or clothing, yet that's how penicillin(and countless other drugs) came about. Do you think every inventor in history had a crystal clear idea what they were inventing and how was it going to change the world? Think about this as our R&D department - it has to get some money to keep pushing us forward. And not everything is done as a benefit/loss game - I would personally invest significant time and money into finding out how the universe came about, even if such knowledge doesn't do anything for starving children in Nigeria. However, the beauty of it is that you on the other hand can go and spend YOUR time and YOUR money on whatever YOU please. As for public spending - if you don't like it, go and vote.
- john_b 12y ago
  Space exploration is not for you. Your tax share of this mission, depending on where you live, is either zero or nearly zero. Asking for personal benefits from a space probe is silly. However, your children, and their children, and so on will likely see benefits from it. The future is impossible to predict, however, so nobody can say what they will be. The principal benefit of missions like this is the new knowledge they generate. That knowledge is then the intellectual heritage of humanity for eternity, and can be used for any number of inventions, benefits, and future discoveries. You are thinking too small. Even if somehow nothing ever comes of this mission, this is the sort of thing that humanity does not because it has survival value, but because it gives value to survival.

avz 12y ago

Improved understanding of our solar system, its history and our place in the universe is a real benefit that soon will be available for anyone. Comets are generally very old, so can enable us to learn a lot about solar system's history. Achieving engineering capabilities required to land on comets is a step forward for human civilization. I consider the above to be actual real world benefits. If they are not, I'm not sure where the boundary of the real world is and where the imaginary world begins.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
Thanks. I would definitely consider the second point a real world benefit but if we are going to spend over $1bn to learn about the solar system's history I take it we are hoping to discover something that actually has benefits to humanity (e.g. when the money could have had more immediate impacts treating disease or helping the poor etc.). Don't get me wrong I'm all for these kinds of missions I just thought that to get that kind of funding the scientists would have had to put forward a list of possible things they might learn which could benefit humanity in the short term to help justify the cost. I'm basically looking for the idiots list of why we should spend so much money on this. Edit: Several downvotes even though I tried to make it clear I'm FOR this kind of spending. My problem is basically how do you explain to someone on the street why spending $1bn on a mission to a comet is worth it when we don't know what benefits it will bring.
- tmmm 12y ago
  Trying to find answers to the most important questions is much more important than saving a few thousand people now. Plus, we'll probably need to leave Earth one day, and before that we need to know how.
- grey-area 12y ago
  If you want to talk about spending priorities, how about the folly of the Iraq war, trident, etc. those cost huge amounts more than this mission? Not everyone has the same priorities as you. Thank goodness at least some of our money is spent on things which might benefit humanity in the long term, like discovering how the solar system was formed or whether life was formed on earth or elsewhere.

NickPollard 12y ago

It's mostly about understanding our solar system and how it formed - comets supposedly contain a lot of early material and could be key to understanding the formation of various parts of the system. Some believe that water or other materials from comets were fundamental in the origination of life here on Earth. It also gives us more understanding on the material composition of the rest of space - which might be of more practical use once we start mining space, for example.

hobofan 12y ago

I am sure that companies like Planetary Recources (and anyone who wants to make refueling in space possible) will greatly benefit from the discoveries made during this mission.

fit2rule 12y ago

Real world benefit? In 20 years, we move the production capacity of China to space, and everyone, anywhere on the Earth, has the ability to order a product, remotely assembled on our comet moon, for direct delivery. sigh A man can dream.

saraid216 12y ago
It would honestly be faster to ship it overseas.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  I'm quite fine with putting stuff in a holding LEO with robots and having it sit there, waiting for delivery by parachute to my pals and I while we sit in the bliss of an industry-free paradise here on Earth. If we move all the poisonous things to space, where it belongs, we make a better Earth. You bet I'd love to be designing package delivery systems which bring me my new softhard from space. Put all manufacturing on a comet, use its resources (which are plenty) with robot bases, send the result back to a recovering ecosphere, the only one of its kind, here on Earth.
  - saraid216 12y ago
    > the bliss of an industry-free paradise here on Earth See, that's what you should've mentioned the first time. :P I'm cool with that dream. I just thought you were hoping to get stuff faster by dropping it on our heads.

masklinn 12y ago

The lander's mission is: > elemental, isotopic, molecular and mineralogical composition of the cometary material, the characterization of physical properties of the surface and subsurface material, the large-scale structure and the magnetic and plasma environment of the nucleus Amongst other things, they'll be looking for complex organic molecules.

sktrdie 12y ago

Apart from discovering the unknown and adding to the body of knowledge facts about an object that we currently know nothing about, "comets are thought to have delivered a vast quantity of water to Earth, and they may have also seeded Earth with organic molecules" [1] which means that they might hold important clues to how life started here on Earth. Realistically this could have potential future benefits to things we can't even phantom about today - perhaps such discoveries about the origins of life could lead to fundamental innovations in human health. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(spacecraft)#Search_for_organic_compounds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(spacecraft)#Search_for...

valarauca1 12y ago

The actual real world benefits of Space Flight are strange. For example the Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the moon, that allowed us to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war (obviously sarcasm). Instead it gave us seemly random things, that we were looking for, but are beneficial nonetheless and some which may not come out right away. The Apollo Mission gave us ASICs, Cordless Tools, CAT scan, Ear Thermometer, Smoke Detector, Shoe insoles, carbon based water filters, satellite television (boardcasted, not passive reflected), Scratch resistant lenses. These things aren't why we went to the moon. Inventing them kinda just happened to see the program though. Space travel challenges the status quo of technology. Its really REALLY hard. So when ever we (humans) do it, we face new problems, and our solutions sometimes have effects for those on earth.

noir_lord 12y ago
Not to mention inspiring generations. I wouldn't be a programmer with the space program, it inspired a life long love of science and technology.
tripzilch 12y ago
> For example the Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the moon, that allowed us to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war (obviously sarcasm). Sarcasm aside, this is more due to Geneva Conventions rather than actual lack of Death Crystals on the moon.
- valarauca1 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure if we had found Death Crystals on the moon we would have figured out a way to synthesize and weaponize them on earth.

brianpgordon 12y ago

Check out this gif of the orbital maneuvers required for Rosetta to reach its destination: https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif This probably won't be very impressive in a few hundred years, but for now it's a remarkable engineering achievement.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago
Please don't use .gifs for videos, :(

ffk 12y ago

There are several benefits gained, both scientifically and politically. Scientific: * Comets may show us early composition of our solar system since they change less than planets. This may help answer questions related to where water came or where DNA/RNA molecules came from. * Lessons learned here will directly contribute to the success of future missions on both mars and the moon * Solar cell technology was directly advanced, helping push forward solar energy Political & Social: * Brings governments closer together These types of missions require a great amount of cooperation and help stabilize and improve the international political landscape. Around 20 countries cooperated in this mission. * Inspire more people to enter science, math and engineering * Increase collaboration of universities and industry, helping close the gap between theoretical and applied science. [edited to fix formatting]

sophacles 12y ago

One thing the other (very good) replies miss: Never underestimate the power of 'gee whiz' technology has on children. This is cool, exciting engineering. Even if the scientific results are "boring", that is to say we don't get any unexpected data, the act of pushing the boundaries of what humans have been able to do is inspirational. There are kids who will learn about this in school the next few days, and see it on the news, and hear grown ups talking about how neat it is, and decide "I want to be an engineer", or "I want to be a scientist". It doesn't take many of them making this decision to have a big, long term impact (which provides a great societal ROI on the mission).

ctdonath 12y ago

"Strange how much human progress and achievement comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

john_b 12y ago

To pick one example, before the landing it was discovered that the gas jets emitted by the comet interact with the solar wind to produce a unique signal: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/11/12/4126840.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/11/12/4126840.ht... The detailed dynamics are yet to be determined, but since the comet has an orbit that takes it from as close to the sun as Earth and as far away as Jupiter, this signal should change as it travels. Or maybe it doesn't, and if so, that would be a mystery worth investigating. This is a completely unexpected discovery that enables us to study a comet's magnetic field, and how it interacts with the solar wind. Here are some possible benefits just from this one discovery: 1) The instruments necessary to even detect this signal are very impressive by themselves, developing them has probably improved a number of instrumentation technologies on Earth already. 2) The lander's instruments cannot penetrate the surface very far. The fact that this comet even has a magnetic field (however weak) is interesting. It could mean that a significant portion of the comet's interior is composed of iron, nickel, cobalt, or rare earth metals, which would be useful knowledge for people like these: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-mining-venture-backed-by-james-cameron-google-ceo-larry-page/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-mining-venture-backed-b... 3) If future missions to comets find a different type of signal, which in turn leads to a different type of internal composition, the differences in a comet's magnetic field could be used to infer the composition of its interior from a distance, without sending any probes to the surface at all.

mikeash 12y ago

In addition to all the other responses, there's one benefit I haven't seen mentioned yet. In the event that a comet is discovered on a collision course with Earth (an extremely low probability event, but one with enormously bad consequences) then knowing more about the structure and composition of comets would be essential to deflecting it.

joeevans1000 12y ago

Survival of our species.