6th August 2014

Rosetta probe arrives at comet 67P

As we reported last month, the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe has been nearing its destination: the icy comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. After a journey of ten years, five months and four days – covering a distance of 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km) – it has finally arrived in orbit. The journey involved looping around the Sun five times, followed by a series of ten rendezvous manoeuvres that began in May to adjust its speed and trajectory to gradually match those of the comet, which is rushing towards the inner Solar System at nearly 34,000 mph (55,000 km/h). If any of those manoeuvres had failed, the mission would have been lost, and the spacecraft would simply have flown by the comet.

ESA's Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, Alvaro Giménez: "Today's achievement is a result of a huge international endeavour spanning several decades. We have come an extraordinarily long way since the mission concept was first discussed in the late 1970s and approved in 1993, and now we are ready to open a treasure chest of scientific discovery that is destined to rewrite the textbooks on comets for even more decades to come."

Rosetta will now perform a detailed study of the comet, identifying a target site for the Philae robotic lander. As many as five possible landing sites will be identified by late August, before the primary site is identified in mid-September. The final timeline for the sequence of events for deploying Philae – currently expected for 11th November – will be confirmed by the middle of October. After landing, Rosetta will continue to accompany the comet until its closest approach to the Sun in August 2015 and beyond, watching its behaviour from close quarters to provide a unique insight and real-time experience of how a comet works as it hurtles around the Sun. This could reveal new clues to the origins of the Solar System, our home planet and life itself.

All images credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

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