COMETS – Mission Rosetta: Journey to the Origins of the Solar System

They come from the outer reaches of the Solar System, from regions far beyond the planets. Comets are unusual, spectacular and still relatively unexplored. They are dark bodies composed of dust and ice – as old as the Solar System itself. Will they reveal the key to the early history of Earth? Did the oceans’ waters arrive as cometary ice? Were hydrocarbon molecules from comets the fundamental building blocks of life on Earth?

These are the questions that are being investigated by the European Rosetta mission. After travelling for 10 years, the Rosetta spacecraft reached comet 67P/Churyumov Gerasimenko. At the end of 2014, a small lander, Philae, separated from Rosetta and touched down on 67P – a scientific adventure, and a fascinating project for space exploration. The German Aerospace Center (DLR), together with the Museum für Naturkunde (The Museum of Natural History) and the Max Planck Society, will take you to the origins of the Solar System.