Video: Mission control celebrates separation but anxiety builds over landing

A mysterious star that erratically dims by nearly a quarter as a swarm of unknown objects passes in front of it – leading to speculations that artificial objects could be orbiting the star – continues to refuse to give up its secrets after a search for laser pulses from the system turned up empty.

If it were possible to breath in space, one would smell a pungent aroma of rotten eggs, ammonia, vinegary sulphur dioxide and toxic hydrogen cyanide coming from comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, according to sensors on the Rosetta mission.

A comet strike may have triggered the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a rapid warming of the Earth caused by an accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide 56 million years ago. Atmospheric carbon dioxide increased rapidly during the PETM, and an accompanying spike in global temperatures of about 5 to 8 °C lasted for about 150,000 years.