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

Mission controllers lost contact with the probe, as expected, after it hit the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Friday, the European Space Agency said.

ESA chief Jan Woerner called the $1.57 billion mission a success. Aside from sending a lander onto the surface of comet 67P in November 2014 -- a cosmic first -- the Rosetta mission has collected vast amounts of data that researchers will spend many years analyzing.

Scientists have already heralded several discoveries from the mission that offer new insights into the formation of the solar system and the origins of life on Earth.