Rosetta prepares to let go of its comet lander

dark side of comet 67P

A recent image from the Rosetta spacecraft gives a rare look at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's dark side, the side that faces away from the sun.

OSIRIS/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/ROSETTA/ESA

Everything is still on track for scientists to land a robotic probe on a comet called comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12.

There are still seven critical moments that the Rosetta spacecraft has to get through before the landing is considered a success, but in a November 7 briefing mission scientists appeared confident that the probe would be dispatched to the comet as planned. 

For more on this daring landing attempt, read SN‘s feature “Rosetta readies for its close rendezvous with a comet” and follow our coverage here and on Twitter at @ScienceNews.

Ashley Yeager is the associate news editor at Science News. She has worked at The Scientist, the Simons Foundation, Duke University and the W.M. Keck Observatory, and was the web producer for Science News from 2013 to 2015. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.