It's SOOO close

Quietly and efficiently, the ESA's Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is just about to reach its goal.   The probe is 1153 km from the comet's nucleus as of today, August 1 (according to the mission Web site).

This happens to be really remarkable.  Never before have humans had this close a look at a comet - and the mission also plans to land a mini-robot lander on the comet, too.

Really, really remarkable.

To see what it looked like from 1950 km away, click here.