#comet_67p/churyumov-gerasimenko

#Rosetta’s last words: #Science descending to a #comet
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/12/15/rosettas-last-words-science-descending-to-a-comet

On 30 September 2016, at 11:19:37 UT in ESA’s mission control, #rosetta’s signal flat-lined, confirming that the spacecraft had completed its incredible mission on the surface of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko some 40 minutes earlier and 720 million km from Earth. Rosetta was working up to the very end, collecting reams of #science data as it descended towards a region of pits in the Ma’at region on the comet’s ‘head’. Before we ‘retire’ the blog, we wanted to catch up with the instrument teams following this grand finale to find out how their #Instruments performed and if there were any surprises in Rosetta’s last ‘words’ from the comet. First a reminder of the impact site: Rosetta was targeting a point within a 700 x 500 m ellipse, between two pits in the Ma’at region. Reconstruction of the (...)

#Images #Landing #Operations ##CometLanding #instruments #landing_day

#Rosetta #legacy winner announced
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/11/10/rosetta-legacy-winner-announced

Between 6 September and 7 October 2016, we collected 235 contributions to the #rosetta Legacy tumblr. A huge and sincere thank you to all participants who shared experiences, stories and images of how the mission of Rosetta and #Philae to #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has inspired their lives, including study and career choices, artistic practice and other creative endeavours! The authenticity and ingenuity of the submitted entries was overwhelming, and it has been challenging to pick one top prize winner (apologies for the delay!). One entry in particular caught the attention of the ESA judges for the combination of creative effort and motivation, so we selected Cristina Romero from Spain as the top prize winner. The prize consists in a special visit to #estec, ESA’s technical heart in (...)

#Fun_stuff #Outreach #competition

Last NAVCAM archive release
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/10/20/last-navcam-archive-release

The last batch of NAVCAM #Images taken by #Rosetta during the final month of its incredible mission at #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko have been released to the Archive Image Browser. The image set covers the period 2-30 September when the spacecraft was on elliptical orbits that sometimes brought it to within 2 km of the comet’s surface (watch this video for a reminder of #rosetta's ’end of mission’ orbits). The archive release also includes the final five NAVCAM images that were published on 30 September, taken shortly after the spacecraft’s collision manoeuvre was executed on 29 September. The new image sets can be found in folders MTP034 and (...)

#CometWatch ##CometWatch

#CometWatch from #kepler
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/10/07/cometwatch-from-kepler

During the last month of #Rosetta's operations at #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it was no longer possible to observe the #comet with telescopes on Earth because it was too close to the Sun’s position in the sky and therefore not visible in the night-time. Fortunately, NASA’s Kepler space observatory stepped in, taking #Images of the comet every 30 minutes from 7 to 20 September, providing important context to #rosetta's in situ measurements. A world-class exoplanet hunter, Kepler is now in its second mission, called K2, which started on 30 May 2014. While still looking for exoplanets, it is now performing observations along the ecliptic and so observing a wealth of Solar System objects, from large bodies like Neptune and Pluto to smaller ones, like #Comets. For example, it took #images (...)

#Science #space_telescope

#Rosetta’s #Landing site
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/30/rosettas-landing-site

Here’s a sequence of #Images captured by #rosetta during its descent to the surface of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 30 September.

#Instruments ##CometLanding #comet #images #osiris

#comet landing descent image – 51m
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/30/comet-landing-descent-image-51-m

This is #Rosetta's last image of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, taken shortly before impact, an estimated 51 m above the surface. The image was taken with the #osiris wide-angle camera on 30 September 2016. The image scale is about 5 mm/pixel and the image measures about 2.4 m across.

#Ground-based_observations #Images #Instruments ##CometLanding #rosetta

Comet #Landing descent image – 1.2 km
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/30/comet-landing-descent-image-1-2-km

Rosetta’s descent continues. Here’s an OSIRIS narrow-angle camera #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko captured at 10:14 GMT from an altitude of about 1.2 km on 30 September. The image scale is about 2.3 cm/pixel and the image measures about 33 m across.

#Images #Instruments #Rosetta

#comet #Landing descent image – 11.7 km
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/30/comet-landing-descent-image-11-7-km

During #Rosetta's final descent, which is currently undergoing, the #osiris narrow-angle camera captured this image of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 05:25 GMT from an altitude of about 11.7 km. With dramatic shadows, the image shows the comet’s ’neck’ region, with the smooth terrains of Hapi on the right and the rougher Hathor on the left. The image scale is about 22 cm/pixel and the image measures about 450 m across.

#Images #Instruments ##CometLanding #images #rosetta

A comet’s life – a new #sonification from #Rosetta’s #rpc data
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/a-comets-life-a-new-sonification-from-rosettas-rpc-data

In 2014, shortly after Rosetta’s arrival at #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the magnetometer on the Rosetta #plasma Consortium (RPC) suite of #Instruments, #RPC-Mag, detected some surprising oscillations in the plasma surrounding the nucleus, revealing the comet’s mysterious “song”. Now, after two years of monitoring the plasma around the comet, the RPC team present a new song based on data collected during the entire mission, describing the comet’s evolution from the point of view of Rosetta’s magnetometer. While the nucleus of Comet 67P/C-G is itself not magnetised, as measured by plasma instruments on both Rosetta and the lander Philae, it is embedded in the interplanetary #magnetic_field carried throughout the Solar System by the solar wind – a continuous flow of electrically charged (...)

#Audio #Fun_stuff #Science #diamagnetic_cavity #music #singing_comet #waves

#comet Landscapes and #maps of the #southern_hemisphere
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/comet-landscapes

During today’s #Science briefing at ESA’s ESOC, Mohamed El-Maarry (University of Bern) presented a series of highlights about the landscape of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Over the past two years, #Rosetta mapped the entire surface of the comet at high-resolution, resolving very small features and monitoring surface changes with time. The comet nucleus is indeed very dark (see our 2014 blog post NAVCAM’s shades of grey), reflecting only about 4% of the light that hits it. But why is it so dark? Measurements from both #rosetta and Philae report that most of the surface is dry (with the exception of icy boulders) and covered in organic material, most of which had never been detected on the surface of a comet (on this topic, see previous blog posts: Extremely dark, dry and rich in (...)

#Images #Instruments #images #morphology #osiris #regions

Living with a comet: an #osiris team perspective
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/living-with-a-comet-an-osiris-team-perspective

 OSIRIS, #Rosetta’s Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System, has been our all-seeing eye on #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, capturing nearly 68,000 high-resolution #Images of its nucleus and coma from all angles for 924 days. Here the OSIRIS team share some insights beyond the beauty of the images their camera returns. With inputs from Holger Sierks, OSIRIS principal investigator. OSIRIS has always had a big team: there are 97 team members today, and more than 300 people were involved – including industry partners – at the time the camera system was built. The instrument itself comprises two cameras – a wide- and narrow-angle camera, three electronics boxes, eight harnesses, and 22 subsystems, which were provided by nine European research institutes, plus industry, and (...)

#Instruments #Science ##LivingWithAComet #instruments #rosetta #science

#Rosetta measures production of #water at comet over two years
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/27/rosetta-measures-production-of-water-at-comet-over-two-years

Over the past two years, #rosetta has kept a close eye on many properties of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, tracking how these changed along the comet’s orbit. A very crucial aspect concerns how much water vapour a comet releases into space, and how the water production rate varies at different distances from the Sun. For the first time, Rosetta enabled scientists to monitor this quantity and its evolution in situ over two years. In a new study led by Kenneth C. Hansen of the University of Michigan, in the US, measurements of water production rate based on data from #rosina, the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis, are compared with water measurements from other Rosetta #Instruments. The combination of all instruments shows an overall increase of the production of (...)

#Ground-based_observations #Science #dust #ground-based_observations #miro #rpc-ica #simulations #VIRTIS

#CometWatch 18 September – a new view of #Rosetta’s impact site
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/23/cometwatch-18-september-a-new-view-of-rosettas-impact-site

As the #rosetta mission draws to a close next Friday, 30 September 2016, the CometWatch team here at ESA realised that this will be the last ’regular’ entry of this popular feature on the blog (*) through which we have shared a great deal of views of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken with Rosetta’s navigation camera (NAVCAM) since July 2014, shortly before Rosetta’s arrival at the #comet. As it happens, Rosetta recently took a new image of its final “landing” site on 67P/C-G, which we thought would make the perfect entry for this week’s CometWatch. The image was taken on 18 September 2016, when the spacecraft was 12.1 km from the centre of the comet. The image depicts the dust-covered terrains of #Ma'at, on the small comet lobe, where Rosetta is destined to make a controlled impact next (...)

#Images #Landing #Philae ##CometLanding #end_of_mission #landing_sites #navcam #osiris #philae

CometWatch – 31 August & 11 September
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/16/cometwatch-31-august-11-september

This week’s CometWatch entry is a double feature, with two #Images of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from #Rosetta's #navcam taken on 31 August and 11 September 2016, when the spacecraft was 8.8 and 9.8 km, respectively, from the centre of the comet nucleus. The 31 August image provides a dramatic view on the steep slopes of the #hathor region, on the small comet lobe. Hathor consists of a 900-m high cliff sloping down towards the comet’s neck, and is characterised by marked linear features, streaks and even small terraces. In the top left corner, a portion of the smooth terrains of #Hapi is visible; located on the comet’s neck, Hapi is covered in dusty material and punctuated with boulders. The 11 September image, instead, portrays a piece of the #Wosret region, on the opposite side of (...)

##CometWatch #rosetta

The great pit of Deir el-Medina
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/09/the-great-pit-of-deir-el-medina

On 30 September, #Rosetta will descend towards a smooth region in Ma’at, on the smaller of the two lobes of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will target a region that is home to several active pits measuring over 100 m wide and over 50 m deep, with the hope to get some close-up glimpses of these fascinating features. The target site is seen in the image below of three pits in Ma’at (first presented in a paper published in July 2015); #rosetta will target the smooth region between the pits labelled Ma’at 02 and 03. The large, well-defined pit adjacent to the target site and identified in the image above as Ma’at 02 has now been named by the mission team as Deir el-Medina, after a pit in an ancient Egyptian town of the same name. The pit bears resemblance in appearance to the pit in the (...)

#Landing #Operations #Science ##CometLanding #comet #navcam #osiris

#Rosetta catches dusty organics
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/07/rosetta-catches-dusty-organics

Rosetta’s #dust-analysing COSIMA (COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser) instrument has made the first unambiguous detection of solid organic matter in the dust particles ejected by #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in the form of complex carbon-bearing molecules. While organics had already been detected in situ on the comet’s surface by instruments on-board Philae and from orbit by #rosetta’s ROSINA , those were both in the form of gases resulting from the sublimation of ices. By contrast, COSIMA has made its detections in solid dust. Their presence was only ever hinted at in previous comet missions, which flew by their targets at high speed and, as a result, disrupted the particles, making characterisation challenging. But Rosetta is orbiting Comet 67P/C-G and can catch dust particles (...)

#Comets #Science #science

#CometWatch 22 August
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/02/cometwatch-22-august-3

This week’s CometWatch entry was taken with #Rosetta’s #navcam on 22 August 2016, when the spacecraft was 6.8 km from the centre of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The average distance to the surface is about 5.6 km, and with an image scale of 0.5 m/pixel, the image measures about 500 m across. The image shows part of the Ma’at region, close to where it transitions into Anuket and Hathor regions on the #comet’s small lobe. It shows a beautiful contrast between smooth, dust covered surfaces, and rather angular outcropping terrain and scattered debris. For more close-up images taken in the last week, be sure to check the OSIRIS image of the day website. The original 1024 x 1024 pixel image is provided (...)

#Comets #rosetta

Imaging tiny #comet #dust in 3D
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/08/31/imaging-tiny-comet-dust-in-3d

Rosetta has imaged the smallest grains of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s dust yet, with its Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System, MIDAS. MIDAS works by collecting and then physically scanning grains with an Atomic Force Microscope. This uses a very fine tip, a bit like an old-fashioned record player needle, that is scanned over a particle. The deflection of the needle and therefore the height of the sample are measured to build up a 3D picture. This enables scientists to determine the structure of the particle, and thus gain insight into how it might have formed. The new results, published in the journal Nature, provide evidence that dust particles continue to be aggregates below the size range already reported by the COSIMA instrument. That is, even at the very small scales of a few (...)

#Comets #Images #Instruments #Rosetta #coma #instruments #rosetta #science

#CometWatch – late August round-up
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/08/26/cometwatch-late-august-round-up

This week’s CometWatch entry was taken with #Rosetta's #navcam on 17 August 2016, when the spacecraft was 13.9 km from the nucleus of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This close-up view shows a portion of the #Imhotep region, on the large #comet lobe. The top part of the image portrays the flat, smooth-covered portion of Imhotep, scattered with a variety of boulders of different sizes. Towards the top right is a cluster of three large boulders, including the 45-m sized Cheops, named after the Great Pyramid at Giza near Cairo in Egypt. Around the comet’s perihelion, #rosetta observed many spectacular changes on this portion of Imhotep (see blog post ’Comet surface changes before Rosetta’s eyes’). To have an idea of the surface changes, you can compare the new CometWatch with a number of (...)

#Images #Instruments #osiris

#CometWatch – early August round-up
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/08/12/cometwatch-early-august-round-up

Today’s CometWatch entry features a new image from #Rosetta’s #navcam (below) along with a round-up of #Images released from the OSIRIS narrow- and wide-angle cameras in the last week. The NAVCAM image, taken from a distance of about 10.6 km from #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 8 August, shows a spectacular close-up of details close to the boundary of Atum (foreground and left) and Anubis (the smoother region towards the top). To the left, the scene shows exposed layers with smoother material lying in between, which transitions into a heavily eroded zone before taking on a smoother appearance again in the centre, albeit scarred with fracture-like features cross-cutting at a range of scales. Layers can also be picked out towards the top right, some of which have the appearance of being (...)

#comet #rosetta

#CometWatch 6 August – Two years on
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/08/08/cometwatch-6-august-two-years-on

Two incredible years have passed since ESA’s #comet-chaser #Rosetta arrived at #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014. During that time #rosetta has mapped the comet’s curious shape and given us awe-inspiring views from near and far, spotting changes in its surface features and watching as jets of gas and dust stream out in to space – sometimes unexpectedly as sudden outbursts. The spacecraft has performed daring close flybys and made distant excursions to sample gas, dust and plasma at a range of distances, giving unparalleled insight into the processes that operate at the comet and how it interacts with its environment as it hurtles through space. In two years, the comet has travelled around 1.5 billion km along its orbit around the Sun, passing through perihelion last August – (...)

#Arrival #On_this_day #navcam

#CometWatch 18 July
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/07/22/cometwatch-18-july

This week’s CometWatch entry is an image of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from #Rosetta's #navcam, taken on 16 July 2016 when the spacecraft was 9.5 km from the centre of the comet nucleus. The view shows a portion of Ash, on the large comet lobe, in extraordinary detail, displaying the smooth coating of dust that characterises this region. The upper left corner of the frame reveals a small part of the neighbouring Aten region, which, in contrast to Ash, is not covered in dust. Smooth material covering another region of the comet, #Imhotep, also on the large lobe, was featured in another image from #rosetta's #osiris narrow-angle camera, published yesterday on the OSIRIS Image of the Day. The image was taken on 16 July, and also reveals boulders of various sizes (top left), rocky (...)

#Images #Instruments

Final destination: Ma’at region
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/07/21/final-destination-maat-region

The decision has been made for the location of #Rosetta’s controlled impact on #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 30 September 2016, ending the mission. The spacecraft will target Ma’at, a region hosting some active pits on the small #comet lobe. This region has been chosen for its scientific potential and taking into account key operational constraints involved in executing the descent. The expected time for #rosetta's contact with the surface of the comet is approximately 12:30 CEST / 10:30 UTC. More details on the timeline and likely data to be taken during the descent will follow shortly.

#Landing ##CometLanding #end_of_mission #Ma'at

#CometWatch 9 July
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/07/15/cometwatch-9-july

This week’s CometWatch image was taken with #Rosetta's #navcam on 9 July 2016, when the spacecraft was 11.7 km from the nucleus of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This close-up view shows a portion of the Khonsu region on the larger of the two comet lobes. Khonsu is part of the southern hemisphere of 67P/C-G. The image reveals a variety of fractured and smooth terrains, with a great number of #boulders of all sizes, including several large ones. It also includes a three-layered structure with a balancing boulder on top, which was also portrayed in previous #Images, for example the NAVCAM view featured as CometWatch 13 June, which shows the same region but from a broader perspective. Meanwhile, a view of Comet 67P/C-G from #rosetta's #osiris wide-angle camera was published on the OSIRIS (...)

#Instruments

#CometWatch 30 June
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/07/11/cometwatch-30-june

Today’s CometWatch entry, also featured as ESA Space Science Image of the Week, is an image of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken with #Rosetta's navigation camera (NAVCAM) on 30 June 2016, from a distance of 25.8 km. Depicted in the lower right part of the image is the region #hathor, a very intriguing portion of the small #comet lobe, where the head declines steeply towards the neck and body of the comet. This view shows a good fraction of the 900-m high cliff that forms Hathor, with marked linear features crossing the region from left to right. Perpendicular to these, additional streaks and even small terraces can be seen. Beyond the cliff of Hathor, on the right, are hints of the Ma’at region. In the upper right corner, smoother patches of the large comet lobe are visible, covered (...)

#Images #navcam #osiris #rosetta