This week the world was astonished to learn that the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) landed two "hopping rovers" on an asteroid named Ryugu that is 186 million miles from earth. Watch the video above.
Perhaps even more astonishingly is that a science fiction short story published in 1835 told about landing on a comet, which essentially is an asteroid with ice particles. The British tale was titled "Glimpses of Other Worlds" and it told of a ride on a comet (after visiting the sun, of course) that was controlled by "a phial or two of concentrated essence of gravitation."
You can read the amazing short story in Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Stories 1800-1849. Enjoy!
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