How Far We Have Come: Comets

In 1986 ESA’s Giotto mission visited Comet Halley and I watched Patrick Moore on the BBC as the first images of a comets nucleus were returned.

Composite image of Comet Halley's nucleus from Giotto

Now it’s 28 years later and the ESA mission Rosetta has just arrived at 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and the difference in imagery is just amazing – and this isn’t even the full resolution version!

Detail from image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta

More images from Rosetta are on the ESA Space Images website.