Dennis Bodewits
Dept. of Astronomy, University of Maryland
Catching a Comet: First results from the Rosetta mission
Comets are some of the least-altered leftovers that survive from the origin of the solar system. On August 6, 2014, the Rosetta spacecraft entered a close orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and three months later it delivered the Philae probe to its surface. I will summarize the mission’s context and some of the exciting first science results from Rosetta.