Catch a comet at the Royal Society Science Exhibition

Head to the Royal Society’s Summer Exhibition to learn all about one of Europe’s most exciting space missions

Artist's impression of Philae lander on comet 67P

As UK Rosetta scientists prepare themselves for the comet chaser’s rendezvous with its destination comet 67P, children in the UK will be getting their own piece of comet action at this year’s Royal Society Summer Exhibition.

Comets have origins and compositions that are shrouded in mystery. The Rosetta spacecraft will reach 67P in August and land on the surface of the Comet in November, delivering a scientific laboratory to unveil Solar System secrets that span 4.6 billion years. The Rosetta exhibit at the Royal Society spotlights how our UK teams engineered the technology to explore the comet and the scientific instruments to analyse it.

Running from Tuesday 01 - Saturday 06 July, the exhibit will give visitors the chance to:

discover the ingredients to make a comet with an interactive 3D comet sculpture

figure out what happens to a comet’s tail as it zooms past the Sun

see a model of the Rosetta lander sitting on the comet surface

The exhibit is presented by The Open University, Imperial College London, University College London and University of Kent.

Rosetta and the UK

Rosetta is a mission with significant UK involvement from industry and science.

One of the main challenges for all the companies designing instruments for Rosetta has been to ensure the components remain intact for ten years, while the spacecraft makes its way to the comet, and then work perfectly when it gets there. Not an easy task!

More about UK involvement in the mission can be found on our Rosetta page.