Comets and Clangers...

With news of the Rosetta spacecraft’s recording of the Philae comet it looks like Oliver Postgate was right all along and small worlds really do whistle and sing. Of course the Philae comet lander looks as if it’s about to go into hibernation when the batteries fail - but controllers say the mission was 'total success' and that the craft sent back all of its scientific data from surface of the tiny piece of rock.

‘All’ of the scientific data? Well, maybe not. As soon as those batteries die the dustbin lid shutters will slide off and out will come the pink knitted Clangers to gather up their latest bit of space debris and get on with their tiny pink lives..

Yes, the probe missed the Clangers in their metal armour, didn’t have chance to sample the soup Dragon’s green soup from the soup wells inside the comet, couldn't hear the beat of the metallic wings of the Iron Chicken,or see the Froglets whoosh away inside their Top Hat spacecraft. Somehow the Rosetta’s probe managed to miss the music trees: the ones the Clangers harvest for their musical notes. It even missed the cotton-wool cloud that floats over the little world, releasing musical raindrops onto the dusty surface below.

So not all the data then, scientific or not. Mind you it did manage to record the Clangers as they waited under the surface for its batteries to die. 

There’s no mistaking them. Just LISTEN.