Rosetta is now departing Earth to meet asteroid (21) Lutetia in July 2010. It has gained sufficient orbital energy to achieve its final goal: a rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. The spacecraft is scheduled to enter deep-space hibernation by mid 2011 for the coldest leg of her journey to receive a wake up call only in spring 2014.
Rosetta darting across the night
Rosetta darting across the night
Rosetta: tiny dot in the centre
This still image was taken at 22:58 CET on 12 November. The total exposure time was 2 minutes. The field is located in the constellation of Cetus and has a size of 10 x 10 arcmin. Rosetta appears as a dot in the centre of the image while the stars appear as stripes. The stars move for almost 1 arcminute during the exposure. The brightest star in the bottom left corner of the images has a magnitude of 15.
The dot in the centre is Rosetta