Mini lab will be installed on comet nucleus

In 2004, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta spacecraft to fly over the 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet and send the Philae mini-laboratory to its core. Now, the mission is closer to happening as the two objects are expected to meet in November 2014.

During these ten years, the spacecraft will travel about 5 times the Earth's distance to the Sun, even crossing the asteroid belt. The module shipped with the Rosetta probe will even pierce the comet's core for the purpose of collecting and analyzing material samples.

All of this, of course, will depend on the comet's structure to be successfully accomplished. As it is not yet known for sure what the 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko body is made of, it may be that the mission ultimately fails to set up the mini-lab on a very fragmented surface and could not receive it with stability.

Anyway, we will continue to hope that everything goes well and, soon, we are disclosing the first analyzes sent by the probe.