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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Rosetta makes contact with Comet 67P


Fascinating!



Ian Sample writing at TheGuardian:
Rosetta spacecraft makes historic rendezvous with rubber-duck comet 67P/CG
European Space Agency probe brought to within 100km of comet travelling at 55,000km per hour, where it will begin analysis.

A European spacecraft has become the first in history to rendezvous with a comet after a seven-minute burn of the probe’s thrusters brought it within 100km (62 miles) of the hurtling lump of dust and ice.

The European Space Agency’s billion-euro Rosetta spacecraft caught up with comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko more than 400m km from Earth as it streaked towards the sun at around 55,000km per hour.

The manoeuvre that brought the spacecraft alongside the comet marks the end of the beginning of a mission that lifted off from French Guiana 10 years, five months and four days ago. Rosetta now begins its scientific mission, employing a suite of instruments to analyse the comet’s nucleus.

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