Stunning Images From Rosetta
ESA Releases Stunning New Images of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ESA
Marc’s note: ESA has released these detailed images from Rosetta of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko now that it’s in “orbit”. The images use the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera from a distance of 285 km. Image resolution is 5.3 metres/pixel.
Amazing. That’s all I can say about it.
Unlike the one that NASA threw a 800 lb piece of metal at, this comet has no crater on it.
did you not look at these pictures? i see numerous craters.
I don’t see anything that resembles a crater at all. Check pictures of the moon or those of tempel 1, totally different.
i see several. you might want to try looking at those pictures again.
I agree with Hug. Asteroids shown in close up photos often display typical bowl-shaped impact craters. From the photos to date, 67P/C-G’s ‘craters’ look shallow and flat in comparison.
What are those round things on 67P?
Careful… we’ll soon have Richard C. Hoagland claiming to see artificial structures and other strange artifacts on 67P (!)
i’m sure we’re already too late for that… someone has noticed a “face” on it already.
http://www.news.com.au/tech…
AWESOME!!
Interesting, with outgassing, you get terrain that looks much closer to erosion weathering compared to than terrain that comes from meteor bombardment alone.
I’ve seen numerous reports that this is the first rendezvous of a comet by a spacecraft. I believe the first rendezvous was ISEE-3 with Comet Giacobini-Zinner in 1985.
They probably mean the first orbit of a comet by a spacecraft which is a historical event.
ISEE-3 was classed as a flyby. It passed through the comet’s plasma tail. According to records, this will indeed be the first rendezvous.
There are numerous articles calling the 1985 encounter a rendezvous, including Scientific American.
The question is how close does a fly-by have to be to be considered a rendezvous or what is the definition of a rendezvous? The general definition of rendezvous is meeting at a particular time and place. No mention of how close or how long that meeting is although wikipedia talks about earth orbit rendezvous with a constant velocity to each other at close range.
A flyby is a path a spacecraft follows past a planet or other body in space. In a flyby, the spacecraft passes close, but isn’t “captured” into an orbit. A rendezvous requires a precise match of orbital velocities of two objects, allowing them to remain at a constant distance through orbit or station keeping.
I can’t help what what numerous articles or Scientific American stated, NASA considers ISEE-3 as a flyby. Think of gravity assists, a craft comes close to a planet, but doesn’t maintain a constant distance orbit and instead heads out on a new flight path with gained speed. A flyby.
I wonder if the direction that the comet tumbles restricts where the lander can “attach”. I would guess that the lander must align itself with the direction of rotation and this would limit it to the “poles”. Is that right?
I find it very shocking that very few images are being released by ESA. I’ve been watching their websites for days and only a couple of images have been posted. What is going on????? I can’t believe the spacecraft is not sending back dozens of images daily.
I give credit to JPL/NASA, Curiosity and Opportunity have many images posted daily. Wish ESA would do the same.
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/ and other sites have latest images.
And there’s also this site: http://www.esa.int/spaceini…
Will this spacecraft stay with this comet forever?
When will NASA turn it over to Denise, Keith and Google?