67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
short-period comet
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (abbreviated 67P or 67P/C–G and nicknamed "Chury") is a Jupiter-family comet. It is originally from the Kuiper belt and has an orbital period of 6.45 years as of 2012, a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours, and a maximum velocity of 135,000 km/h (38 km/s; 84,000 mph). Churyumov–Gerasimenko is approximately 4.3 by 4.1 km (2.7 by 2.5 mi) at its longest and widest dimensions. It was first observed on photographic plates in 1969 by Soviet astronomers Klim Ivanovych Churyumov and Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko, after whom it is named. It most recently came to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 2 November 2021, and will next come to perihelion on 9 April 2028.
Churyumov–Gerasimenko was the destination of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, launched on 2 March 2004. Rosetta rendezvoused with Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014 and entered orbit on 10 September 2014. Rosetta's lander, Philae, landed on the comet's surface on 12 November 2014, becoming the first spacecraft to land on a comet nucleus. On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by landing on the comet in its Maʽat region.
Discovery
Churyumov–Gerasimenko was discovered in 1969 by Klim Ivanovich Churyumov of Kyiv University's Astronomical Observatory, who examined a photograph that had been exposed for comet Comas Solà by Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko on 11 September 1969 at the Alma-Ata Astrophysical Institute, near Alma-Ata, the then-capital city of Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union.
“67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko” enters the record as short-period comet. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Churyumov, Gerasimenko and short-period can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q844672. VIAF identifies the subject as 315590607. The Library of Congress control number is sh2007006983. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 1969, 2021 and 2028.
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This entry incorporates text from “67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.