DHAKA: European spacecraft Rosetta became the first ever to catch up with a comet on Wednesday, a landmark stage in a decade-long space mission that scientists hope will help unlock some of the secrets of the solar system.

Rosetta, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2004, will accompany comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on its trip around the sun and land a probe on it later this year in an unprecedented manoeuvre.

Scientists are now on a tight schedule to learn enough about the comet using data from Rosetta to safely land the spacecraft's probe on it in November.

‘We know what the comet's shape is. But we haven't really measured its gravity, we don't know yet where the centre of mass is,’ Rosetta flight director Andrea Accomazzo told media ahead of the rendezvous, reports The Straits Times.

As it neared 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko this year, Rosetta took pictures revealing that it is not shaped, as had been assumed, like a rugby or American football, but rather comprises two segments connected by a neck, giving it an asymmetrical shape that has been likened to a duck.

BDST: 2145 HRS, AUG 06, 2014