Erstellt am: 12. 11. 2014 - 15:13 Uhr

Boldly going where no spacecraft has gone before...

Reality Check: Rosetta comet landing; US, China climate pledge; India sterilisation deaths; Maria Lipman, Carnegie Endowment

ESA / ATG MEDIALAB / DPA

An image from the animation of Philae lander separating from Rosetta and descending to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The Rosetta mission

A major milestone has been reached in a 10-year quest to land a spacecraft on a comet. The European Space Agency's unmanned Rosetta probe has successfully released a landing craft which is heading for the surface of a comet named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It's mission: to shed some light on some of the mysteries of these fast-moving lumps of dust and ice. The landing attempt is the climax of a project to study the 4-kilometre wide comet which is travelling at 66,000 kilometres per hour:

Russia and Iran

A deadline is looming for Iran and the US, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain to reach a deal on Tehran's controversial nuclear programme. But given that Russia is part of those negotiations, why is Moscow signing a contract to build more nuclear reactors in Iran? We hear from Maria Lipman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow, who is in Vienna to give a talk at the IWM:

The US, China and a climate pledge

The leaders of China and the US have jointly announced new pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a summit in Beijing. The US President Barack Obama described the move as "historic" - but how will these proposals be put into practice? We look at the reality behind the rhetoric with David McCollum from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis:

Sterilisation deaths in India

A team of doctors is being sent from India's capital Delhi to the state of Chhattisgarh to help in an emergency which has seen 13 women dying after botched sterilisation surgery. Our correspondent in India Geeta Pandey has been following the story:

The EU and Canada free trade

A controversial trade deal between the EU and Canada could come into effect in 2016. We talk to an economist from Canada's Confederation of Trade Unions to find out why the accord - known as CETA - has been causing so much friction: