European scientists will this week make the first attempt to land a probe on the surface of a comet, the climax of a decade-long project to unlock some of the secrets of the universe.

Spacecraft Rosetta caught up with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August. On Tuesday night, the team at the European Space Agency (ESA) will decide whether to give the final go-ahead to release a lander from the craft.

Comets — celestial bodies of dust, ice and complex molecules — are remnants of the birth of our 4.6 billion-year-old solar system. The probe's mission is to gather samples from the comet to analyze the development of Earth and other planets.