Montreal Gazette

COMET PROBE ROSETTA ENDS 12-YEAR MISSION WITH CRASH

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BERLIN After 12 years of hurtling through space in pursuit of a comet, the Rosetta probe ended its mission Friday with a slow-motion crash onto the icy surface of the alien world it was sent out to study.

Mission controller­s lost contact with the probe, as expected, after it hit the surface of comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenk­o at 10:39 a.m. GMT (6:39 a.m. ET) Friday, the European Space Agency said.

“Farewell Rosetta, you’ve done the job,” said mission manager Patrick Martin. “That is space science at its best.”

ESA chief Jan Woerner called the 1.4-billion-euro ($2.06-billion) mission a success.

Aside from sending a lander onto the surface of comet 67P in November 2014 — a cosmic first — the Rosetta mission has collected vast amounts of data that researcher­s will spend many years analyzing.

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