ESA - Space Science - The post-Halley era

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The post-Halley era

10 March 2006

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An image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Our Solar System is home to one star, nine planets and dozens of planetary satellites. It also contains millions of asteroids and comets – the left-over debris from the cosmic construction site that created the planets and their moons.

Rosetta’s task is to study these primitive building blocks at close quarters so that scientists may gain new insights into the events that took place 4600 million years ago, during the birth of Earth and its planetary neighbours.

Credits: ESA and European Southern Observatory

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This image of Comet Wild 2 was one of 72 taken with the navigation camera on NASA's Stardust spacecraft during its encounter with the comet between 31 December 2003 and 2 January 2004. The Wild 2 nucleus measures five kilometres wide.

Credits: NASA

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Comet 9P/Tempel 1 observed with the 1-metre ESA Optical Ground Station (OGS) telescope, Tenerife, Canary Islands. The images here were taken with a broadband red filter, four days before and about 15 hours after the impact respectively, and show the dust coma of the comet.

Credits: ESA

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An artist’s impression of Rosetta approaching the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Rosetta’s 11-year expedition began in March 2004, with an Ariane 5 launch from Kourou in French Guiana. Using three Earth-gravity assists (2004, 2007, 2009) and one at Mars (2007), the spacecraft was propelled towards the outer Solar System. It has encountered two asteroids, (2867)Steins in 2008 and (21)Lutetia in 2010, and is now cruising to its final destination.

Rosetta will reach the comet in 2014, and will be the first mission ever to orbit a comet’s nucleus and to deliver a lander, called Philae, on its surface.

Credits: ESA, image by AOES Medialab

ESA's comet chaser

More about...

Giotto overview Rosetta factsheet

Giotto’s brief encounter Giotto’s second comet encounter The birth of Giotto Giotto’s comet results Life of a comet ESA observes Deep Impact from Earth Dust and gas from Comet 9P/Tempel 1 seen by ESA OGS