VOYAGE TO A COMET The Rosetta spacecraft was launched in 2004 After a 10-year journey in August 2014 it caught up with a large comet called 67P Churyumov Gerasimenko 4
It was the first time in history that a spacecraft intercepted a comet and followed it partway around the Sun It was also the first time a remote probe landed on a comet's surface Rosetta's history making mission is helping scientists better understand comets and the birth of our solar system 5
WHY GO TO A COMET People have been amazed by comets since ancient times These mysterious lights in the night sky with their spectacular glowing tails were once thought to predict death and disaster Today we know comets are large hunks of ice dust and rocks speeding through space Halley's comet streaks across the sky in 1986 The well known comet is visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years It will next appear in 2061 A close up view of the center or nucleus of Halley's comet taken on March 13 1986 by the European Space Agency's Giotto spacecraft 6
Many comets travel around the Sun in large elliptical orbits They regularly return sometimes hundreds of years later Others speed past the Sun once never to be seen again Halley's Comet Orbit Jupiter's orbit Mars orbit Earth's orbit Saturn's orbit 1985 Uranus 1983 orbit 1987 1989 Neptune's orbit 1977 1996 Pluto's orbit Halley's comet position at given date 1948 2024 XTREME FACT In the 1500s Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe disproved the idea that comets were part of Earth's atmosphere Instead Brahe proved that comets came from far away much farther than the Moon 7
