The first landing on a comet by a spacecraft from Earth will take place at a location European managers for the Rosetta space mission have dubbed Site J, on the upper "head" part of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

After seeing the Rosetta probe catch up with the sun-orbiting chunk of space material in early August, the European Space Agency studied several locations on the tumbling world before a panel decided unanimously to send Philae, the mission's separate lander, to an "intriguing" region that holds "unique scientific potential, with hints of activity nearby, and minimum risk to the lander compared to the other candidate sites," according to an agency news release.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is an irregularly-shaped world that's a little more than 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles, across at its widest point.

The lander's backup touch-down location is Site C, on the comet's lower region, or "body."

Weighing in at 100 kilograms, or a little more than 220 pounds, the lander is scheduled to reach the comet's surface on Nov. 11, after which it will run a series of measurements to analyze the nucleus in situ -- a space exploration first.

Determining the landing site was a rather difficult task, explained Stephan Ulamec, Philae Lander Manager at the DLR German Aerospace Center.

"As we have seen from recent close-up images, the comet is a beautiful but dramatic world -- it is scientifically exciting, but its shape makes it operationally challenging ... None of the candidate landing sites met all of the operational criteria at the 100% level, but Site J is clearly the best solution," Ulamec said in a statement.

Added Jean-Pierre Bibring, a lead lander scientist and principal investigator of the CIVA instrument at the IAS in Orsay, France: "We will make the first ever in situ analysis of a comet at this site, giving us an unparalleled insight into the composition, structure and evolution of a comet ... Site J in particular offers us the chance to analyse pristine material, characterise the properties of the nucleus, and study the processes that drive its activity."