Rosetta: To Catch a Comet!

The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission captured the imagination of the world in 2014, as it rendezvoused with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and deployed a lander, Philae, to its surface. In this talk, he will give a behind-the-scenes view of the mission, its history, the 10-year journey to reach the comet, and the exciting events that took place during more than 2 years of operations there, before ending in September 2016, when Rosetta joined Philae on the comet. He will talk about some of the challenges and risks involved in the mission, and give some insights into the key scientific findings revealed to date about the formation of our solar system, the origins of water, and perhaps even life on Earth.