10 yrs on, Rosetta catches up with comet 67P

Europe's Rosetta probe has arrived at a comet after a 10-year chase. In a first for space history, the spacecraft was manoeuvred alongside a speeding body to begin mapping its surface in detail. The spacecraft fired its thrusters for six and a half minutes to finally catch up with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. "We're at the comet!" said Sylvain Lodiot of the European Space Agency (Esa) operations centre in Germany. "After 10 years, five months and four days travelling towards our destination, looping around the Sun five times and clocking up 6.4 billion km, we are delighted to announce finally 'we are here'," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of Esa.

Deep slumber
To save energy, controllers at Esa's centre in Darmstadt, Germany, put Rosetta into hibernation for 31 months.

In January they successfully woke the craft from its slumber as it began the final leg of the daring encounter.

For the past two months, Rosetta has been carrying out a series of manoeuvres to slow the probe down. The comet is travelling at 55,000km per hour (34,175 mph). The spacecraft's speed has been adjusted so that in relative terms it will be flying beside the comet at a slow walking pace of 1m/sec (2.2mph, 3.6kph).

At a distance of 550 million km from the Earth, messages are taking over 22 minutes to get to Rosetta.