The future location of humankind's very first touch-down on a comet has been pared down to a handful of possibilities.

Mission managers for the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft report they've crunched data sent home by the robotic probe since it reached and began orbiting its target -- Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko -- a few weeks ago and have settled on five potential landing spots, a news release said.

In November, Rosetta will activate and deploy its Philae lander, which will take up residence on the tumbling deep-space traveler, which is currently about 522 million kilometers, or 324 million miles, from the sun.

One of the mission's primary goals is to study how Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko reacts as it reaches its closest approach to the sun on Aug. 13, 2015, passing by the medium-sized star within an estimated 185 million kilometers, or 115 million miles.

At that range, the comet, Rosetta and Philae -- the latter of which weighs about 100 kilograms, or 220 pounds -- will be subjected to eight times more solar radiation than is reaching them now.

While Rosetta and its scientific instruments watch how the comet, particularly its coma and surface, evolves as the sun's heating increases, the lander's instruments will be taking similar measurements below.

Philae and the orbiter will also work together to transmit and receive radio waves directed through the comet's interior, during the hurtling ball of rock and ice's 6.5-year orbit .

ESA officials say that for each possible landing zone, important questions must be asked:

Will the lander be able to maintain regular communications with Rosetta?

How common are surface hazards such as large boulders, deep crevasses or steep slopes?

Is there sufficient illumination for scientific operations and enough sunlight to recharge the lander's batteries beyond its initial 64-hour lifetime, while not so much as to cause overheating?

"Based on the particular shape and the global topography of Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it is probably no surprise that many locations had to be ruled out," explained Stephan Ulamec, the lander's manager from DLR, Germany's space agency. "The candidate sites that we want to follow up for further analysis are thought to be technically feasible on the basis of a preliminary analysis of flight dynamics and other key issues -- for example they all provide at least six hours of daylight per comet rotation and offer some flat terrain. Of course, every site has the potential for unique scientific discoveries."

The comet, explained lead mission scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring, "exhibits spectacular features still to be understood ... the five chosen sites offer us the best chance to land and study the composition, internal structure and activity of the comet with the ten lander experiments."

Said Bibring: "The comet is very different to anything we've seen before."