ESA’s Comet Interceptor mission to visit a pristine comet or other interstellar object just starting its journey into the inner solar system has been “adopted” this week; the study phase is complete and, following selection of the spacecraft prime contractor, work will soon begin to build the mission.

Comet Interceptor will share a ride into space with ESA’s Ariel exoplanet mission in 2029. The mission will build upon the successes of Rosetta and Giotto, ESA missions that both visited “short-period” comets. Though these missions completely transformed our understanding of comets, their targets had already swung around the sun many times and had therefore changed significantly since their creation.

Comet Interceptor aims to scrutinize a comet that has spent little time in the inner solar system, or is possibly visiting it for the first time. Whilst Rosetta’s target hailed from the rocky Kuiper Belt just beyond Neptune, Comet Interceptor’s could originate from the vast Oort Cloud, more than a thousand times further from the sun.

The distant star AU Microscopii may have mysterious cold spots. It seems to contain pockets of hydrogen that are more than 1500°C cooler than the surrounding areas, and astronomers aren’t sure why.

The James Webb Space Telescope dima_zel/ iStock

Between May 23 and 25, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was hit by a micrometeoroid that has impacted one of its primary mirror segments, NASA said in a recent update on its website. The telescope continues to function at levels exceeding mission requirements.

A meteoroid is a fragment of an asteroid and can be either large or small. A micrometeoroid, though, is a microscopic fragment of a meteoroid and is smaller than a grain of sand. NASA estimates that millions of meteoroids and micrometeoroids strike the Earth’s atmosphere every day but most burn up due to the friction.

#PlanetExplorers brings you epic stories of exploration and discovery around five bodies in our solar system, told by the scientists who love and study them.