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Farewell Rosetta, your death should be spectacular

The Rosetta probe, launched by the European Space Agency in 2004, captured the world’s attention two years ago when it finally arrived at the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko after a 10-year, 807 million kilometre journey.

Rosetta was carrying the Philae Lander, which eventually made its way down to the comet to carry out some experiments and surveillance. At the time, it was the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet.

But as the old adage goes, all good things must come to an end – and just like that, Rosetta will descend to her fiery death on Friday. The good news is that you can watch it live on your computer screen.

Ok… the craft won’t actually go up (or down) in a ball of fire, but will rather be set into a controlled descent down to the lander, where it will meet up for the last time.

The reason for doing this, is that the sun’s rays are becoming too weak to power the solar panels on Rosetta, and without the necessary power she will simply freeze in place.

So on Friday you will be able to tune into Nasa TV and the coverage on the Nasa website from 3:15 to 5 a.m PDT (that is from 12 midday in South Africa) with Nasa commentary, interviews and analysis of the successful mission.

If you want to skip all the technical stuff and only watch the controlled decent of the spacecraft onto the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, that will happen around 13:20 (South African time).

The ESA hoped that Rosetta would be able provide information about the origin and evolution of our solar system by investigating theories about how comets may have played a direct role in introducing water and perhaps even life onto Earth.

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