Rosetta comet chaser picks up speed

At 08:45 CET, Rosetta will streak past Earth just south of the Indonesian island of Java, passing within 2,500 kilometres of the planet and in the process being accelerated by almost 13,000 km/h to a speed of approximately 61,000 km/h. By then, the scientific spacecraft will have travelled 4.5 billion kilometres since its launch on 2 March 2004. Its next scientific target is asteroid 21-Lutetia,