After 12 years of hurtling through space in pursuit of a comet, the Rosetta probe ended its mission with a slow-motion crash onto the icy surface of the alien world it was sent out to study.

While Europeans were focused on the Brexit vote, others, further west, were gazing toward a more celestial horizon, and a new world of commercial possibilities.

The European Space Agency is set to double its Irish workforce, creating more than 1,000 space technology jobs over the next four years.

It’s been almost 50 years since Nasa astronaut Neil Armstrong left the dusty imprints of his lunar boots on the surface of the moon.