Live coverage: ExoMars orbiter safely arrives at Mars, lander’s fate uncertain

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft closed in Thursday for a deliberate crash landing on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Friday, a slow-motion kamikaze plunge to bring the enormously successful mission to an end after more than two years of unprecedented close-range observations.

Riding a Japanese rocket, the Arab world’s first interplanetary probe departed planet Earth on Sunday to begin a seven-month journey to Mars on a dual mission of scientific exploration and proving the mettle of the UAE’s growing space programme.

The brightly lit limb of a crescent Enceladus looks ethereal against the blackness of space. The rest of the moon, lit by light reflected from Saturn, presents a ghostly appearance.