10 years and more than 6.4 billion kilometers later, the Rosetta space probe has just reached its goal: to join the side of comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko to travel together through space at a speed of 55,000 kilometers per hour.
The Rosetta mission, belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA) will thus become the first probe to orbit a comet ; an event that ESA itself has described as “rendez-vous” (quote, in French). The “space rendezvous” will consist of 10 different maneuvers that will place the Rosetta probe 30 kilometers away from the comet.
“For the first time we are going to meet a comet, for the first time we are going to escort a comet as it passes close to the Sun and, for the first time, we are going to implement a lander,” says Matt Taylor, project leader.
In the coming months, Rosetta will develop maps of the comet’s surface to reveal its characteristics and the best place to carry out the landing, as its mission will continue with the placement of a lander on its surface that will have in order to obtain data about the composition, gravity and density of the comet. But this last step won’t be done until November.
At this time and with a mass of 110 kgs, the Philae module will land on the comet using two harpoons that will anchor on its surface. Once there, he will pierce through the comet and study its composition, which would help provide answers as to whether or not the theory that life came to Earth thanks to these rocks is true or not.
” Comets have information about our origins and are the same as the building blocks that planets formed 4 billion years ago,” explains Laurence O’Rourke, Rosetta science operations coordinator.
