This interactive 3D tool shows where the European Space Agency’s comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft is on any given day – from launch in 2004 to beyond the end of its nominal mission in 2015. You can watch the entire journey play through or choose dates of interest to get her current position. The information returned tells you how far Rosetta is from the Sun, Earth and comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. All distances are in kilometres (km) and the date is displayed in the format year-month-day. The distance provided is the distance at 12:00 UT on each date, and is the best value available at the time of preparing this tool. By using the mouse or keyboard keys you can pan, zoom and rotate the view. Note that the proportions and appearances of the planets, comet and Rosetta are not true representations, and no indication is given of the activity of the comet.

Open source javascript libraries:

• Three.js (Ricardo Cabello), TrackballControls.js (Eberhard Graether, Mark Lundin)
• JQuery (John Resig)

Textures:

• Mercury: James Hastings-Trew (planetpixelemporium)
• Venus: James Hastings-Trew (planetpixelemporium)
• Earth: NASA Earth Observatory (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
• Mars: James Hastings-Trew (planetpixelemporium)
• Jupiter: James Hastings-Trew (planetpixelemporium)

Background image of the  Milkyway: Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org), with our special thanks

This interactive 3D visualization is supported only by WebGL compatible browsers and graphics cards. Further information is available here: http://get.webgl.org