Comet 67P landing site named 'Agilkia'

The site 'J' where Rosetta's Philae lander was schedules to touch down Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is now named as 'Agilkia.'

The landing site has been named after Agilkia Island, an island on the Nile River in the south of Egypt. A complex of Ancient Egyptian buildings, including the famous Temple of Isis, was moved to Agilkia from the island of Philae when the latter was flooded during the building of the Aswan dams' last century.

Agilkia has been one of the most popular entries as it had been proposed by over 150 participants. The committee had selected Alexandre Brouste from France as the overall winner.

As a prize, Mr. Brouste would be invited to ESA's Space Operations Control Center in Darmstadt, Germany, to follow the landing live.

The task of choosing a name was by no means simple, more than 8,000 entries from 135 countries were received in one week, showing great creativity and cultural diversity.

Fred Jansen, ESA Rosetta mission manager has said that it couldn't be a more appropriate name as the relocation of the temples of Philae Island to Agilkia Island was an ambitious technical endeavor performed in the 1960s and 1970s to preserve an archaeological record of our ancient history.

In eight days' time, Philae will be deployed from the orbiter onto Agilkia.

On 12 November, the scientists would be attempting a unique comet landing, an even more ambitious endeavor to unlock secrets of our most remote origins.