European space mission to land on comet Nov 12

The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission will deploy its lander Philae on a comet Nov 12.

The comet - 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko - is a remnant of the solar system's 4.6-billion-year history.

The Philae's landing site, currently known as Site J, is located on the smaller of the comet's two 'lobes' with a back-up site on the larger lobe.

"The descent to the comet is passive and it is only possible to predict that the landing point will be within a 'landing ellipse' (typically a few hundred yards or metres in size)," the European Space Agency said in a statement.

The sites were selected just six weeks after Rosetta's arrival at the comet Aug 6 following the spacecraft's 10-year journey through the solar system.

Following the Philae landing, the Rosetta orbiter will continue to study the comet and its environment using 11 science instruments for another year as the spacecraft and comet orbit the Sun together.

The comet is on an elliptical 6.5-year orbit that goes beyond Jupiter at its farthest point to between the orbits of Mars and Earth at its closest to the Sun.

Rosetta will accompany the comet for more than a year as they swing around the Sun and back to the outer solar system again.

The main focus has been to survey the comet in order to prepare for the first-ever attempt to soft-land on a comet.

Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the sun and its planets formed.

By studying the gas, dust and structure of the organic materials associated with the comet, the Rosetta mission should become key to unlocking the history and evolution of our solar system, as well as answering questions regarding the origin of Earth's water and perhaps even life, the European Space Agency concluded.