Video: Mission control celebrates separation but anxiety builds over landing

A flotilla of spacecraft orbiting Mars will be turning their instruments in two directions – one towards Comet Siding Spring, and the other towards Mars itself, to find out what happens when a planetary atmosphere brushes against the fuzzy atmosphere of a comet.

Europe’s Philae lander transmitted all its stored science data from the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko before falling silent as battery power failed.

Images of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from Rosetta’s navigation camera have taken on a darker, more “atmospheric” tone in recent days and the latest view is no exception.