You may have seen this in the news. The European Space Agency’s “Rosetta” spacecraft was launched ten years ago with the plan for it to intercept Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and drop a probe onto its surface this year.
Rosetta has been in hibernation for 2 1/2 years and was just stirred back to life yesterday by the ESA center in Germany.
The comet interception is set to happen this fall. There have been other spacecraft-to-comet missions before, but this will be the first time that a craft goes into orbit around a comet and anchors a probe to its surface. Here’s what it’s supposed to look like:
A little impressive, no?