[meteorite-list] Your Chance To Name A Comet Landing Site

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4343

Your Chance To Name A Comet Landing Site
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
October 16, 2014

Ever want to get in on the celestial feature-naming action? Now is your 
chance. The European Space Agency is inviting the public to suggest a 
name for the site where the Rosetta mission's Philae lander will touch 
down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Nov. 12. The winner of the 
competition will have an opportunity to travel to the European Space Operations 
Center in Darmstadt, Germany, to follow the landing live from the mission's 
control center.

The competition will end on Oct. 22 at 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT). The winner 
will be announced on Nov. 3 on the main Rosetta web page:

www.esa.int/rosetta

For details of the competition and to enter, visit:

http://sci.esa.int/rosetta-competition/

Launched in March 2004, Rosetta was reactivated in January 2014 after 
a record 957 days in hibernation. Composed of an orbiter and lander, Rosetta's 
objectives since arriving at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko earlier this 
month have been to study the celestial object up close in unprecedented 
detail, prepare for landing a probe on the comet's nucleus in November, 
and following the landing, track the comet's changes as it sweeps past 
the sun.

Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from 
the epoch when our sun and its planets formed. Rosetta's lander will obtain 
the first images taken from a comet's surface and will provide comprehensive 
analysis of the comet's possible primordial composition by drilling into 
the surface. Rosetta also will be the first spacecraft to witness at close 
proximity how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity 
of the sun's radiation. Observations will help scientists learn more about 
the origin and evolution of our solar system and the role comets may have 
played in seeding Earth with water, and perhaps even life.

Rosetta is a European Space Agency mission with contributions from its 
member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium 
led by the German Aerospace Center, Cologne; Max Planck Institute for 
Solar System Research, Gottingen; National Center of Space Studies of 
France (CNES), Paris; and the Italian Space Agency, Rome. NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a division of the California Institute 
of Technology, manages the U.S. participation in the Rosetta mission for 
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit:

http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov

More information about Rosetta is available at:

http://www.esa.int/rosetta

Media Contact
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Markus Bauer
European Space Agency, Noordwijk, Netherlands
011-31-71-565-6799
markus.bauer at esa.int

2014-360