10 years since Rosetta

An online exhibition of the human side of Rosetta’s impact

On 12 November 2014, after a ten-year journey through the Solar System and over 500 million kilometres from home, Rosetta’s lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this extraordinary feat, we celebrate by taking a look back over the mission's highlights.

Rosetta was an ESA mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. It studied Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for over two years, including delivering lander Philae to the comet’s surface. Philae was provided by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI.

Read the article Philae’s extraordinary comet landing relived.

On 12 November 2014, after a ten year journey through the Solar System and over 500 million kilometres from home, Rosetta’s lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this extraordinary feat, we celebrate Philae’s impressive achievements at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

From inspiring a love for the stars to making a life-changing career move, we want to know how ESA’s Rosetta mission has shaped your life.

Exactly ten years on since Rosetta arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, we dig into how the intrepid explorer has transformed our knowledge of comets, revealed some crucial pieces in the Solar System jigsaw puzzle, and shaped how we develop new missions.

Today, ESA and the Zooniverse launch Rosetta Zoo, a citizen science project that invites volunteers to engage in a cosmic game of 'spot the difference'. By browsing through pictures collected by ESA's Rosetta mission, you can help scientists figure out how a comet's surface evolves as it swings around the Sun.

Animation showing how Rosetta’s Philae lander moved through touchdown site two on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014.

Initially travelling in a downward direction, Philae slides down the edge of a boulder (1) and flips vertically, rotating like a windmill to pass between two boulders (2) exposing layers of ice in the crevice walls with its feet. A dust wall was created by the windmill action, pushing through the dust that had heaped up between the boulders up to that point in time. The crevice is about 2.5 m long and is curved with a width of 1–1.5 m, allowing Philae to pass through. Philae then stamps a 25 cm imprint of the top of the lander into the comet’s surface (3) – a hole made by the top of the SD2 (Sampling, Drilling and Distribution device) tower that sticks up above the top of Philae can be recognised. Philae then climbed out of the crevice, knocking off material from an overhang (4a) and was pushed down again with its top surface, creating an impression in the dust corresponding to the ‘eye’ of the feature that resembles a skull face (4b).

The colours correspond to the data presented in the accompanying annotated infographic.

Credits: Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA; Data: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/ROMAP; Analysis: O’Rourke et al (2020)

After years of detective work, the second touchdown site of Rosetta’s Philae lander has been located on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in a site that resembles the shape of a skull. Philae left its imprint in billions-of-years-old ice, revealing that the comet’s icy interior is softer than cappuccino froth.

On 12 November 2014 Philae became the first spacecraft to land on a comet as part of the successful Rosetta mission to study Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Five years later, and after the mission’s official end in 2016, Rosetta is continuing to provide insights into the origins of our Solar System.

Rosetta’s instruments have already discovered that the comet contained oxygen, organic molecules, noble gases and ’heavy’ or deuterated water different to that found on Earth.  
As scientists continue to analyse data from Rosetta’s instruments, including the ionised gas or plasma, the results are improving our understanding of comets. Mission data is also being delivered to an archive as a future resource.

Rosetta orbits the Sun every 6.5 years and will pass the Earth again, visible from ground-based telescopes, in 2021. ESA’s future Comet Interceptor mission will build on Rosetta’s success when it performs a flyby of a comet. But, unlike Rosetta, the comet will be new to our Solar System.

The film contains interviews with Charlotte Goetz, Research Fellow, ESA; Kathrin Altwegg, ROSINA instrument principal investigator, Rosetta/University of Bern; Colin Snodgrass, Comet Interceptor deputy principal investigator/University of Edinburgh

Compilation of images taken by Rosetta’s high resolution OSIRIS camera during the mission’s final hours at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. As it moved closer towards the surface it scanned across an ancient pit and sent back images showing what would become its final resting place.

Browse all images via the Archive Image Browser: https://imagearchives.esac.esa.int

Credits: Images: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA – CC BY-SA 4.0
Image compilation: ESA–D. C. Jimeno and M. P. Ayucar