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By Andrew
#8768
Sci-fi short promotes Rosetta comet mission
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News



The European Space Agency has released a short sci-fi movie to promote its audacious Rosetta comet mission.

Called, suitably, Ambition, it stars Game of Thrones' Aidan Gillen and actress Aisling Franciosi as master and apprentice on an alien world.

In the seven-minute drama, the pair discuss the presence of water on planets and the origin of life.

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Aidan Gillen and Aisling Franciosi play master and apprentice on an alien world

These are themes Esa's Rosetta probe hopes to address in its study of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Next month, the spacecraft will drop a small robot on to the surface of the 4km-wide ice body to analyse its chemistry.

Theory holds that comets may have been responsible for delivering water to the planets early in the Solar System's history. They could even have delivered important chemistry that helped to kick-start biology at Earth. The mission intends to test these ideas.

Esa believes the movie-short can take the goals of Rosetta to a wider audience.

"We are trying something supremely ambitious. Rosetta is a first; it's unique," said the agency's chief scientific advisor Prof Mark McCaughrean.

Click here to read more
Source: BBC Science


More on Rosetta at the ESA
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By Christine
#10045
Truly boggles the mind to think of what may be out there... Ambition - aptly named