Rosetta (spacecraft)

High school (ages 12+)
Space & Astronomy

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/rosetta-spacecraft

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the mission type?Comet orbiter and lander
2. What is the agency?European Space Agency (ESA)
3. What was the Rosetta spacecraft and why did it travel to a comet?Rosetta was a robot explorer launched by the European Space Agency to study comet 67P, a dusty snowball that keeps clues about how the Sun and planets formed.
4. How did Rosetta reach comet 67P?It used gravity‑assist flybys of Earth and Mars to gain speed and adjust its path, and also visited asteroids Lutetia and Šteins for calibration.

Gravity Assist: A maneuver where a spacecraft uses the gravitational pull of a planet to alter its speed and trajectory.
Cometary Nucleus: The solid, central core of a comet, composed primarily of ice, dust, and rocky material.
Solar Nebula: The giant cloud of gas and dust from which the Sun and planets of our solar system formed.
In-situ Analysis: Scientific measurements and observations made directly at the location of the object being studied.