Rocket launch delayed

The launch of Europe's Rosetta comet mission has been put off until tomorrow due to high winds.

The Rosetta spacecraft will chase the comet around the universe at 135,000km an hour, before launching a small craft onto its surface.

The key instrument on board, designed by the same British team that built the ill-fated Beagle 2 Mars Lander, could unlock the secrets of how life spread through the universe.

The European Space Agency (ESA) mission was set to blast off at 7.26am from French Guiana but was postponed due to the adverse weather.

If successful, it will be the first time scientists have landed a craft on the surface of a comet.

The spacecraft will hurtle through space before catching the 4.6 billion-year-old 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet in 2014.

Once the craft reaches the comet, it will launch a landing craft that will touch down on the surface. Instruments on board will then analyse the soil and transmit results back to earth.

Professor Colin Pillinger, head of the Open University team working on the project with ESA, said: "We could well find a kind of scum that would contain what are the chemical building blocks of life."