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Icy surprises at Rosetta's comet

As Rosetta’s comet approached its most active period last year, the spacecraft spotted carbon dioxide ice – never before seen on a comet – followed by the emergence of two unusually large patches of water ice.

Klim Churyumov (1937-2016)

We were saddened to learn the news yesterday that Klim Churyumov, who discovered Rosetta's comet together with Svetlana Gerasimenko in 1969, has passed away.

Mission complete: Rosetta’s journey ends in daring descent to comet

ESA’s historic Rosetta mission has concluded as planned, with the controlled impact onto the comet it had been investigating for more than two years.

Last call from Rosetta

Going... going... gone! A sequence of screenshots showing the signal from Rosetta seen at ESA's ESOC mission control centre via NASA's 70m tracking station at Madrid during comet landing on 30 September 2016. The peak of the spectrum analyser is strong at 12:19 CEST, and a few moments later, it's gone.

Once upon a time...

Mission Complete

Rosetta Infographic

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