In 2014, the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe will enter orbit around a comet -- the first time this will have ever been done -- and then drop a lander on it -- and oh yeah, that's the first time this will have ever been done, too. I'm pretty excited about this mission, and NASA and ESA have put together this really well-done video explaining the mission and what it'll do:
[embed width="610"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoePrO4-fGQ[/embed]
I found this on the Rosetta Blog
which has been a great source of info over the years. Rosetta has already been a very successful mission without even having reached its target yet: it's swung by Mars
, took stunning closeup images of the asteroid Lutetia
, flew past another asteroid called Steins and got nifty pix of that
, and also flew past Earth -- twice! three times! -- to steal some of our orbital energy ...
