ROSINA spectral measurements bring comet’s chemistry to life

Launched March 2004 and following a 10-year journey across the solar system, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe made history in 2014. It became the first spacecraft to orbit the nucleus of a comet—a frozen remnant of the pristine material from which the solar system formed—and later land on its surface. The Rosetta mission ended in 2016 with the probe’s dive into the comet, called Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. But its close-up studies of the comet continue to yield scientific insights.