6 Amazing Discoveries From Rosetta's Epic Comet Encounter
The first spacecraft to orbit a comet just met a dramatic end. Find out what we’ve learned from the ambitious mission.
At 7:19 a.m. ET (11:19 a.m. GMT) on September 30, a robotic pioneer went from dust to dust: The European Space Agency intentionally crash-landed its Rosetta spacecraft, the first probe to orbit a comet.
Launched in March 2004, Rosetta arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on August 6, 2014, after a decade of zipping through the solar system. And for more than two years, the Rosetta orbiter and its Philae lander made good on the mission’s name, helping scientists decipher the makeup of comets—primeval balls of ice and dust that have preserved pristine material from the early solar system.
But like all good things, the Rosetta mission had to come to an end. Comet 67P made its closest approach to the sun
