It has been an epic journey, much more than 12 years in the making, but Rosetta is just about to go out in a blaze of glory. The final commands were uploaded to the spacecraft mid-morning on September…
Rosetta has finally shed light on the origin of both ice and jets on comet 67P. It will now head closer to the sun to look at the comet’s interactions with the solar wind.
As far as underwhelming headlines go: “No Alien Life Found on Comet” must rank very close to the top. An article with this title appeared in the Guardian on July 6 in response to a story claiming that…
Sinkholes on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko could teach us a lot about the geology and history of the body, but they could also spell the end for Philae.
The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission to land on comet 67P was one of the most audacious in space history. The idea of landing on a small chunk of icy rock 300m kilometres away from Earth and hurtling…
The landing of Rosetta’s Philae on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko was a triumph of engineering. Many spectacular scientific firsts will follow now, but small glitches during the landing make it more difficult…
“Are we there yet?” is a plaintive query that most parents learn to dread, especially if uttered while halted in a traffic jam in the baking hot sun. At least the Rosetta spacecraft has not had to deal…
There is much excitement about Rosetta at the moment. The European Space Agency’s spacecraft has already made a successful rendezvous with a comet and the images that are being transmitted back are simply…
On August 6, millions of miles away from Earth, the firing of a rocket thruster signalled the end of a decade-long journey by a European spacecraft to reach its ultimate target – a comet. The spacecraft…