Take a minute to close your eyes and imagine how you think a spacecraft would crash to its doom. Perhaps you imagined it flying into the surface of a planet or asteroid, obliterating it. Or maybe you thought of a huge explosion, sending parts flying out into space. Neither of these is what happened to the Rosetta, a spacecraft which has been orbiting a comet known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The Rosetta ended with a somewhat slow-motion crash. Scientists steered it into the comet at walking speed for what they called its “Grand Finale”. Although the Rosetta was not destroyed in the crash, its antenna was bent, causing it to lose contact with Earth forever. The European Space Agency, or the ESA, are the creators of Rosetta. They believe it crashed at 6:39 A.M. ET on Friday. Signals of the crash were received around 7:20 A.M. The scientists counted down through the Rosetta Twitter account, which you can view here.

Rosetta was launched March 4th, 2004, meaning it has been in space for 12 years. Its main purpose was to chase a comet orbiting around the sun to gain information about it. This picture was the last image taken by the Rosetta, when it was 51 meters above the comet. During its lifetime, Rosetta managed to spot the Philae spacecraft, the first probe to ever make a controlled landing on a comet.

Unfortunately, Philae bounced around in the process of landing shattering its solar panels. Not long after, the battery ran out and the Philae spacecraft lost contact with Earth forever in 2015. The two missions combined cost $1.57 Billion since they started in 1996. The past two years have been critical for Rosetta, as it first reached the comet in 2014. Matt Taylor, a member of the ESA, says that, “Planning for the mission began in the 1980s.” It took over 30 years for scientists to hit even a single target. Some have spent almost their entire life on it.

Many people can get very emotional about the end of a spacecraft’s mission, even if they don’t think they will. Many people on Twitter confessed to this, and it’s not surprising. Scientists tried their best not to get very sentimental. At the end of the mission, Rosetta’s twitter account sent the message “Mission complete” in a variety of different languages.

By Milo Schmitt               

Information gotten from cnn.com ( http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/30/health/rosetta-landing-comet-philae/) and npr.com (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/30/496042230/watch-rosetta-ends-mission-by-crashing-into-comet)