Learn French: Cette mission ira vers une étoile lointaine. - This mission will go toward a distant star.

Cette mission ira vers une étoile lointaine.

This mission will go toward a distant star.

Breakdown of Cette mission ira vers une étoile lointaine.

Questions & Answers about Cette mission ira vers une étoile lointaine.

Where does ira come from? Shouldn't the future tense of aller be "allera"?

Aller (to go) is completely irregular in the future tense! Instead of using its full infinitive as the base, it uses the special stem ir-. Because cette mission acts as a singular "it" (elle), we add the standard future ending -a to get ira (will go).

Why use vers instead of à (to) here?

Vers specifically means "towards" or "in the direction of." Using à would imply arriving exactly at the star as a precise final destination, whereas vers emphasizes the trajectory of heading out into space.

I notice lointaine has an -e at the end. Is étoile a feminine word?

Exactly. Étoile (star) is feminine, which you can also tell by the word une right before it. The basic masculine adjective for "distant" is lointain, so we add an -e to make it agree with the feminine noun, becoming lointaine.

Why is it Cette mission and not Ce mission?