Comet 67P/Churumov-Gerasimenko was chosen as the target of the Rosetta mission from the European Space Agency. The Rosetta probe launched in 2001 after many years of development after the mission’s approval in 1993 and finally reached its destination in 2014. It then accompanied the comet as it approached the sun and began to warm up. A high-point of the mission was the touch-down of the Philae lander on the surface of the comet in November 2014.
The MiARD project is concerned with analysing the large amounts of data obtained by the Rosetta mission in order to improve our understanding of comets, and the origins and evolution of the solar system (including the Earth, and the origins of life).