Here’s what you should know about the tattooed Londoner who landed Rosetta on a comet

He's been trending on Twitter all day – the tattooed physicist from East London who was one of the key scientists behind yesterday's comet landing. 

 

Dr Matt Taylor is a project scientist for the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, and he was so confident that it would prove successful that in January, he had an image of the landing tattooed on his leg.

 

“I'm incredibly confident that we're going to nail this landing. I'm confident enough to have it drawn on my body,” he told BBC Breakfast. And indeed they did – at 4pm on Wednesday, the spacecraft sent a confirmation signal down to Earth that its landing probe had touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

 

The philae-landing is not Taylor's only tattoo, however – his whole body is covered in them. In fact, he is so heavily decorated that he was told by his seniors to cover up at media events for the mission.

 

His interesting choice of shirt, which features scantily clad women in various raunchy poses, has also raised a few eyebrows. He even used to be part of a death metal band called the Septic Willies.

 

Here is a video of Taylor having the moment of landing tattoed on his leg:

But Taylor seems to be a family man at heart – he's married to the woman he met in sixth form, who he describes as “the most beautiful and intelligent woman on the planet”, and has two children with her.

 

His family members aren't always as complimentary about him, however – his sister Maxine told the Evening Standard that although he was a genius, he found it hard to park a car and was sometimes “useless” due to moments of indecision in his daily life. 

 

“He gets so involved in everything that sometimes common sense goes out the window – like losing the car in the car park, silly things,” she said. 

 

“If you go out with him you end up going round and round looking for a car parking space…he doesn’t want to make decisions.”

 

However, she went on to say that the family are extremely proud of what he has achieved: “It is nice to make science cool. He has made it fun and interesting. People are probably watching because he is a bit of a character.” 

 

HOW THE TATTOED PHYSICIST HAS TAKEN TWITTER BY STORM