BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Rosetta is on the comet - her mission is completed

In Once upon a time... Rosetta's second year at the comet, Rosetta describes the exciting discoveries she made during her second year at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, after the comet made its closest approach to the Sun along its orbit. She also tells us about her efforts to contact Philae, and starts counting down to her own mission finale.

(Published on 1 Jul 2016)

Rosetta has flown about 6.4 billion miles during her mission. But the mission ends on Friday - the rest of her travels will be around and around the Sun on a comet, but ESA won't be able to talk to her after Friday.

Why is the mission ending? ESA answers some frequently asked questions.

Animation visualizing Rosetta's descent to the comet's surface tomorrow. The sequence is speeded up to show the relative motion of Rosetta and the rotating comet below. Rosetta will target a smooth region close to several large pits measuring more than 100 m across and 60m deep, on the small lobe of the comet.

The impact time is predicted as 11:20 GMT +/- 20 minutes on 30 September.

You can find the latest updates here.

The final animation in the story of Rosetta and Philae shows this amazing mission completed.

Explore Rosetta's Comet

What would it be like to fly around a comet nucleus? If your browser is WebGL-compatible, you can do that. Click here to see if your browser is suitable. If it is you can load ESA's detailed digital model of Comet 67P and go exploring.

With a standard mouse, the left button lets you rotate the comet, the right button lets you move the comet around, and the scroll wheel lets you zoom in. ESA's robotic

Rosetta spacecraft orbited Comet C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko from mid-2014 until last Friday, when, after a remarkable and successful mission, it was intentionally set down on the surface and powered down. Among many notable scientific achievements, Rosetta allowed humanity to better understand where comet jets form on comets as they near the Sun.

(Thanks to Astronomy Picture of the Day for the heads up on this.)

Here is a short video that shows the last images Rosetta sent back of the comet. I particularly liked the one that looked like a goofy animal. If you watch it, be sure to glance at the distances shown on the left. You can see Rosetta getting closer and closer.

Rosetta's remarkable mission to study Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko was completed at the end of last month when the spacecraft landed on the comet.

Sadly, the mission of Soviet-Ukrainian astronomer Klim Churyumov, who discovered Rosetta’s comet with Svetlana Gerasimenko, ended today. He died aged 79. Churyumov was the Director of the Kiev Planetarium, member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the International Astronomical Union, of the New York Academy of Sciences, editor of the magazine "Our Skies" (Ukrainian: Наше Небо) in 2006-2009, president of the Ukrainian Society of amateur astronomy and author of books for children.

I've come across an interview with Svetlana Gerasimenko, co-discoverer of the comet on which Rosetta landed.

I have to admit that I didn't know much about her and her colleague Klim Churyumov. The interview was over twelve years ago, but it was still interesting. Sadly, Churyumov died two weeks ago, but I'm glad that he lived to see the brilliant Rosetta mission to its end.