March towards a new Space Destination

Space scientists are exploring new possibilities being in the space race. We have explored most part of our galaxy, the planets and their satellites. But that’s not all, the march is towards the Comets. A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, heats up and begins to outgas, displaying a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei range from a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres across and are composed of loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles. The coma and tail are much larger and, if sufficiently bright, may be seen from the Earth without the aid of a telescope. Comets have been observed and recorded since ancient times by many different cultures.

The European Space Agency is the first in the world to land a probe on any Comet nucleus. The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission is the first to land a probe on the surface of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, a small comet hundreds of millions of kilometers from the Sun. As the comets are time capsules dating back to the earliest days of our solar system, the data gathered by this mission could reveal the role played by comets in delivering water and organic molecules to an infant Earth.

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is a comet with a current orbital period of 6.45 years, a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours and a maximum velocity of 135,000 km/h (38 km/s; 84,000 mph). 67P is approximately 4.1 kilometres (2.5 mi) by 4.3 kilometres (2.7 mi) at its widest and longest dimensions. It will next come to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 13 August 2015. Like most comets, it is named after its discoverers, Soviet astronomers Klim Ivanovych Churyumov and Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko. They first observed it on photographic plates in 1969.

Churyumov–Gerasimenko is the destination of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, launched on 2 March 2004. Rosetta rendezvoused with Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014 and entered orbit on 10 September 2014. Rosetta '​s lander, Philae, landed on its surface on 12 November 2014.