Why is the mission called Rosetta?
It is named after the Rosetta Stone, a slab of volcanic basalt found near Rashid (Rosetta), Egypt, in 1799. This stone tablet revolutionised our understanding of the past. By comparing the carved inscriptions on the stone (written in two forms of Egyptian and Greek), historians were able to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphics – the written language of ancient Egypt. The Rosetta Stone provided the key to an ancient civilisation. ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft will allow scientists to unlock the mysteries of the oldest building blocks of our Solar System – the comets.
