COMET CAM

Photos: What it’s like to be a spacecraft crash-landing into a comet

ESA/Rosetta

Comet 67P from 84.3 km away.

Senior reporter

Published September 30, 2016This article is more than 2 years old.

The European Space Agency terminated the Rosetta mission today, and did it in a spectacular way. It crash-landed the spacecraft, which weighed nearly 3,000 kg (3.3 tons) and had a wing span of 30 meters. All the while, as it descended to its doom, it took pictures. (Here’s what it might have thought about its own death.)

View from 15.5 km