Paul Weissman - Back to the Beginning: The Rosetta Comet Rendezvous Mission

Series: Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series

Comets are the most primitive bodies in the solar system. They retain a physical and chemical record of conditions in the solar nebula, the vast cloud of interstellar dust and gas where our solar system formed, 4.56 billion years ago.

The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission is the first one to orbit a cometary nucleus and to study it in great detail as it moves around the Sun. Rosetta arrived at the target comet in August 2014 and will continue to study it until September 2016. A highlight of the mission was when Rosetta deployed a lander, named "Philae," to the nucleus surface in November 2014.

Paul Weissman is the Astronomy Science Lead for Table Observatory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which Caltech manages for NASA.

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Presented by: Caltech Committee on Institute Programs

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