European scientists on Wednesday make the first-ever attempt to land a probe on the surface of a comet, the most nail-biting stage of a ten-year mission to find out more about these time-capsules of the universe, Reuters reports.
The European Space Agency early on Wednesday gave the final go-ahead for the Rosetta spacecraft, which has been orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since August, to jettison a lander to collect samples from the surface.
They will give insight into how Earth and other planets formed, because comets are remnants of the formation of the 4.6-billion-year-old solar system. Scientists believe they may have brought much of the water in today’s oceans.
