Highlights from the ESA Rosetta mission

The Rosetta/Philae mission of the European Space Agency marked a turning point in cometary space exploration. Launched on March 2004, Rosetta needed 10 years of interplanetary journey to arrive around its main target, the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta orbited around the comet for about two years, providing the unique opportunity to continuously investigate the 67P nucleus composition, activity, and its evolution during the orbit. For the first time in the history of the space exploration, Rosetta delivered a lander, Philae, on a cometary surface.
A large complement of scientific experiments designed to complete the most detailed study of a comet ever attempted are on board Rosetta, including cameras, spectrometers, radio science, dust and plasma analyser and so on. More than 80,000 images of the comet have been acquired with the OSIRIS imaging system with a spatial resolution ranging from several meters to a few centimeters per pixel. I will present the main scientific results of this extraordinary space mission on the structure, geomorphology, and surface composition of the comet, and their implications on the formation of our solar system.