The Rosetta space probe spent over 10 years travelling through the solar system to land on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. In doing so, it generated huge amounts of publicity, especially on social media. Rosetta acquired a personality through its twitter account, with regular updates on its mission. A series of cartoons from the European Space Agency documented Rosetta and Philae, it's lander, on their journey through space.
The whole project has been a real success story, not just for the discoveries about comets (including finding organic compounds and the amino acid glycine), but for how to communicate complex scientific findings to the public and particularly engage young people in this research.
This week a Polish team have taken the unusual step of sending a Rosetta plush toy into the stratosphere using a balloon - recreating a key scene from the Rosetta cartoon series. The video, shown above, shows how space research still has the ability to excite us all - sometimes in unexpected ways.