back to article Happy birthday! Rosetta starts second year around comet

More than a decade after its launch, the spacecraft Rosetta reached Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and as it approaches perihelion with the Sun, the ESA is celebrating a year since Rosetta reached its target. As we well know, rendezvous wasn't without incident: instead of dropping neatly on the surface of 67P, the mission's …

  1. AbelSoul
    Pint

    A year already?

    It's flown by. (sorry)

    More seriously, here's to more excellent science from this wonderful project.

  2. Christoph

    "since the comet will be at its warmest, it will also be at its most active."

    It will heat up at its fastest at that point, but it will still keep absorbing heat and getting more active for some time to come. In the same way as Summer is after the summer solstice - it's a while before it reaches maximum temperature and starts cooling off..

  3. Hollerith 1

    Let its summer be more exciting than ours

    @Christoph, yes, we can hope for a lot of activity even past the peak heating-up phase, and if Philae can keep getting power, I hope we will continue to have our minds blown by the data coming back. This is, quite simply, f#cking awesome.

  4. ravenviz Silver badge
    Pirate

    But mayflies

    Just to think we are just visitors, 67/P is going to be around long after we have gone. Do you think it noticed us?

  5. Ugotta B. Kiddingme
    Pint

    Well done!

    Hearty congratulations to the ESA and associated teams. Even if we learn very little else, this entire venture must surely go down as smashing success. PhDs may scoff and sneer all they like but, engineers made this work.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like