The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the adoption of the Comet Interceptor space mission to be the next solar system exploration mission.
Comet Interceptor will be the first space mission to visit a comet from the confines of the solar system, or even outside the solar system, with the unique characteristic of remaining on standby in the solar system before melting towards this comet, explains the agency in a press release. , noting that such a comet may only be discovered in a few years and potentially after Comet Interceptor leaves Earth.
Developed in collaboration with the Japanese space agency (JAXA), several national space agencies and research centers in Europe, this exploration mission, proposed by the European scientific community, will be implemented in the coming years to be launched in 2029, specifies -your. Comet Interceptor can be considered a descendant of ESA’s pioneering cometary missions Giotto and Rosetta. It is however different, on the one hand, because it will provide the first simultaneous observations – in three different points – of an object located outside the terrestrial environment, and, on the other hand, because it will target a comet visiting the inner solar system for the first time – likely originating from the vast Oort cloud surrounding the outer edges of the solar system, according to the same source.
Comet Interceptor will consist of three space probes: the composite craft will wait patiently at a point in the solar system (the Lagrange point L2) for a suitable target comet, then travel together before the three space probes that compose it separate a few weeks before to intercept the comet. Its three spacecraft, the Agency explains, will then make simultaneous observations around the comet. Each space probe will be equipped with specific scientific instruments that will provide complementary information about the comet’s nucleus and its gas, dust and plasma environment, to understand the nature of a primitive comet interacting with the wind environment. ever-changing sun. They will thus create the first 3D profile of a comet coming from the Oort cloud, containing material that has survived since the formation of the Sun and the planets.