Mix together the bitter smell of almonds, the sour odor of rotten eggs, the dank aroma of horse stable, the pungent aroma of formaldehyde, the biting scent of alcohol all together and voila: comet perfume.

Scientists can smell this comet because Rosetta has a spectrometer, which detects the chemical make up of the comet’s misty aura, called a coma, which forms around the comet when it travels close to the sun and the ice turns into a gas.