Exciting as it is (and it is incredibly exciting), the Rosetta mission is the latest in a history of comet exploration that has added to our knowledge of these icy dirtballs.
Comets are usually just a few kilometres across and consist of a mixture of ice, carbon-based material and rock dust. A comet can develop a spectacular million kilometre-long tail of gas and dust when its elongated orbit brings it close to the sun.
The warmth of the sun vaporises water, carbon monoxide and other volatile substances that are otherwise held as ice. Jets of gas escape from the solid part of the comet (its nucleus) to feed the growing tail. However, for most of the time a comet is far from the sun, and it is simply a dark, dusty object too faint to detect using even the largest telescopes. Read more...
More about Us World, European Space Agency, Space, and Rosetta
from MashableThe Conversation
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