Europe's Rosetta space mission blasted off aboard an Ariane rocket from French Guiana this morning in an attempt to chase and land on a comet.
The rocket, which , departed from the European Space Agency's (ESA) launch centre in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America at 7.17 a.m. (Irish time) on the first stage of a seven-billion-kilometre, 10-year journey to reach the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Two launch attempts last week were cancelled due to bad weather and technical problems. The Ariane-5 rocket lit up the equatorial night sky and was visible from the ground for over a minute.
It is scheduled to fly for over two hours before its upper stage re-ignites and then releases the Rosetta spacecraft.
Scientists believe comets may contain chemical and physical records from the time the solar system was formed some 4.6 billion years ago.
The Rosetta mission will attempt to discover the secrets of how life began on earth - and perhaps even elsewhere in the universe.