Comet chaser Rosetta to make final swing by Earth on November 13.Byline: ANIParis, November 5 (ANI): ESA's (European Space Agency European Space Agency (ESA), multinational agency dedicated to the promotion, for exclusively peaceful purposes, of cooperation among European states in space research and technology. ) comet chaser Rosetta will swing by Earth for the last time on November 13 to pick up energy and begin the final leg of its 10-year journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This will be the third Earth swing by, the last of Rosetta's four planetary gravity assists. Closest approach to Earth is expected at 08:45 CET CET abbr. Central European Time CET Central European Time CET n abbr (= Central European Time) → hora de Europa central CET abbr . The swingby will provide exactly the boost Rosetta needs to continue into the outer Solar System. The spacecraft is scheduled for a close encounter with asteroid 21 Lutetia in July next year, before it goes into hibernation early in 2011, only to wake up in early 2014 for approach to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. As the most primitive objects in the Solar System, the chemical composition of comets has not changed much since their formation. They preserve a record of the early Solar System. When it reaches 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, Rosetta will be the first mission to orbit and deploy a lander on a comet. It will help to reconstruct the history of our neighborhood in space. The spacecraft is operated from ESOC ESOC European Space Operations Centre ESOC Emergency Supply Operations Center ESOC Enterprise Security Operations Center (FBI) ESOC Earth Station Ownership Committee , ESA's European Space Operations Centre The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) is responsible for controlling ESA satellites and space probes. The centre is located in Darmstadt, Germany. It is Mission Control for most of the space projects of the ESA. , Darmstadt, Germany. (ANI) Copyright 2009 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency. (ANI) - All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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