Sydney news

After 12 years travelling the solar system, the Rosetta mission is about to come to a crashing end, more than 700 million kilometres away from Earth. The probe, built and launched by the European Space Agency, was designed to provide the first detailed study of a comet, including successfully landing a module on one. But now its mothership is set to send its last transmissions home before crash-landing on to the comet near the lander. The mission has significant Australian connections.

A New Zealand citizen residing in Melbourne has been sentenced to 5.5 years' jail for preparing to travel to a foreign state to engage in hostile activity. The Supreme Court of Victoria sentenced the 26-year-old, who was stopped in Brisbane by Customs officers en route to Istanbul in September 2013. He had intended to enter Syria to fight in foreign state conflict and described himself in court as being "naive and foolish" at the time of the offences.

The Prime Minister says the South Australian blackout should serve as a wake-up call about the achievability of some states' renewable energy targets. The Federal Government says it will ask states and territories to work towards a national target instead. The Opposition says South Australia's renewable energy target had nothing to do with the blackout, which was caused by an extreme weather event, and the Prime Minister should instead focus on how the Federal Government can assist the state's r