The European spacecraft Rosetta is chasing a comet far out in space near the orbit of Jupiter. The comet has recently developed an ethereal veil. An 800-mile-long cloud of dust, known as a coma, has been noticed in the new images from Rosetta.

The cloud of dust has sprouted from the core of the comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Views of Coma were captured by Rosetta's scientific imaging system, OSIRIS, between March 27 and May 4. The images were released by the European Space Agency on Thursday.

The 67P appear like a real comet, said Holger Sierks, the principal investigator for OSIRIS at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany.

Although Rosetta is 1.2 million miles (nearly 2 million kilometers) away from the comet, it will be inside 67P's dusty cloud in a matter of months. It will move along the icy wanderer on an unprecedented journey to the inner reaches of the solar system. The spacecraft is expected to arrive at the comets in August.

The comet orbits the sun every 6.5 years and the icy body begins to heat up as it gets closer to the sun.

A long dirty cloud that trails behind the comet is created after its surface ice sublimates and its nucleus releases volatile gases laced with dust particles.

Rosetta was launched in 2004 and it is currently 375 million miles (600 million km) from the Sun. The shape of Rosetta is like an aluminum box and it weighs 6,600 lbs.

The voyage to the comet has taken a decade for Rosetta because the several gravity assists were needed by the spacecraft. Earlier in January, the spacecraft was awakened from a two-and-a-half year hibernation in anticipation of the encounter. Astronomers have figured out the comet's brightness and the fact that it rotates on its axis once every 12.4 hours.