Rosetta

Rosetta is a name used for several notable things across archaeology, space exploration, and computing. The term is most commonly associated with the Rosetta Stone, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission to a comet, and the Rosetta software for protein modeling and design.

Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele dating to about 196 BCE. It bears a decree written in three scripts—Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphic—enabling scholars to interpret hieroglyphs. Found in 1799, it is now housed in the British Museum and widely regarded as a key to deciphering ancient Egyptian language.

Rosetta (spacecraft) was an European Space Agency mission launched in 2004 to study comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It carried the Philae lander, which touched down on the comet in 2014 but operated briefly. The orbiter conducted extensive measurements of the comet’s nucleus, coma, and outgassing, contributing to understanding of cometary composition and solar-system formation. The mission ended in 2016 after completing its primary objectives.

Rosetta (software) refers to a suite of computational biology tools designed to predict protein structures, design novel proteins, and model molecular interactions. Developed by David Baker’s group, it is used widely in research and education, with the Rosetta@home project harnessing volunteer computing to run simulations on distributed networks.

Apple Rosetta refers to translation technologies that enable cross-architecture compatibility. Rosetta (introduced in 2006) translated PowerPC applications to run on Intel-based Macs, while Rosetta 2, introduced with Apple silicon in 2020, translates Intel binaries to run on ARM-based systems.