#CometWatch 10 April
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/04/15/cometwatch-10-april
After a far excursion to explore the tail of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, #Rosetta is now back to closer distances from the comet nucleus. This week’s CometWatch image was obtained with #rosetta's #navcam at 01:39 UTC on 10 April 2016, 31.4 km away. On the night between 9 and 10 April 2016, the spacecraft performed a special #flyby, 30 km from the nucleus and with a phase angle very close to zero degrees. The phase angle is measured between the direction of the sunlight illuminating the nucleus and that of the light reflected by the nucleus and caught by Rosetta. A near-zero phase angle means that these two directions are very close to one another, which happens when the spacecraft is flying exactly between the Sun and the comet. In this configuration, Rosetta could see the sunlight (...)