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10 New Rosetta Images Reveal Comet 67P In All Its Glory

Posted by Soulskill on from the hooray-science dept.

sciencehabit writes: The first scientific results from Rosetta at comet 67P have been published, and they detail a surprising diversity of features on the 4-kilometer-long duck-shaped comet. The discoveries include images from Rosetta's main science camera, OSIRIS, which reveal 67P to be a far more varied place than anyone expected. The article summarizes a trove of scientific papers that were published today about comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The best part? They're all freely available.

29 comments

  1. duck or... by CresCoJeff · · Score: 1

    ...porygon? It's too angular to be a good duck; I vote porygon.

    1. Re:duck or... by Livius · · Score: 3, Funny

      And is it lighter or heavier than a duck? It might be a witch.

    2. Re:duck or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The current comet shape model suggests that the mass is 1013 kg (about 100 million times the mass of the international space station), with a bulk density of ~470 kg/m3 (similar to cork, wood, or aerogel). The low mass and density values strongly constrain the composition and internal structure of the nucleus, implying a relatively fluffy nature, with a porosity of 70 to 80% (Sierks et al., this issue). The nucleus surface itself appears rich in organic materials, with little sign of water ice (Capaccioni et al., this issue).

      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6220/387.short

    3. Re:duck or... by daremonai · · Score: 4, Informative
      That's 10^13 kg, of course.

      So, it's heavier than a duck - in fact, since ducks average only a little over a kilogram, and the worldwide population of ducks is likely only on the order of a billion or so, it's heavier than all the ducks in the world put together.

      On the other hand, its density implies it would float.

      Hmm, I'd recommend burning it, just to be on the safe side. Perhaps the Sun can see to that.

    4. Re:duck or... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The current comet shape model suggests that the mass is 1013 kg (about 100 million times the mass of the international space station), with a bulk density of ~470 kg/m3 (similar to cork, wood, or aerogel). The low mass and density values strongly constrain the composition and internal structure of the nucleus, implying a relatively fluffy nature, with a porosity of 70 to 80% (Sierks et al., this issue). The nucleus surface itself appears rich in organic materials, with little sign of water ice (Capaccioni et al., this issue).

      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6220/387.short

      Just "wood" is a poor point of comparison for density; the density of common woods varies substantially.

    5. Re:duck or... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      - He's headed for that small porygon!
      - That's no porygon. It's a duck.
      - It's too angular to be a duck.
      - I have a bad feeling about this...

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    6. Re:duck or... by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying it was an alien stone duck......... but it was an alien stone duck!

    7. Re:duck or... by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      yet I see only four out of dozens that would be a truly piss poor choice for a raft

  2. You gullible people by Hussman32 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Can't you understand that it is impossible for humans to place something on a comet? It's a hoax, a HOAX I tell you, and all of you swallowed this hook line and sinker.

    Sure, you'll reference the wonderfully focused pictures (notice there are no particles on the lens, WHERE ARE THEY?!?!?!) but if you saw Superman throwing Zod into a skyscraper, you didn't believe that did you? Therefore they must be faking it.

    It's a conspiracy, I tell you, a CONSPIRACY!!! .. ..

    [before you mod this down, realize I'm joking...okay?]

    --
    "Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
    1. Re:You gullible people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It still would have been stupid, but it would have been better if you left out your last sentence.

    2. Re:You gullible people by Hussman32 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, reading the day after, I gotta agree.

      --
      "Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
  3. life force by bumba2014 · · Score: 1

    any one thinking about the movie life force (1985), when they started landing on meteorites...?

    1. Re:life force by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no as I was of that age where I would have been too distracted by the 'nakid boobies' I don't actually remember the plot.

    2. Re:life force by camperdave · · Score: 1

      no as I was of that age where I would have been too distracted by the 'nakid boobies' I don't actually remember the plot.

      You say that as if there is an age when you're no longer distracted by 'nakid boobies'.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  4. I Wish by rotorbudd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I remember watching Alan Shepard's launch on a black and white TV in elementary school, and 50 years later we're getting hd pictures back from the surface of a comet.
    Sure would like to live another 50 just to see what the hell is coming down the line for us.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
    1. Re:I Wish by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      All you need to do is to be rich and gullible.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:I Wish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All you need to do is to be rich and gullible.

      Or chose the wrong staff:

      www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ted-williams-frozen-head-batting-practice-cryogenics-lab-book-article

      Workers at an Arizona cryonics facility mutilated the frozen head of baseball legend Ted Williams - even using it for a bizarre batting practice, a new tell-all book claims. In "Frozen," Larry Johnson, a former exec at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., graphically describes how The Splendid Splinter" was beheaded, his head frozen and repeatedly abused. The book, out Tuesday from Vanguard Press, tells how Williams' corpse became "Alcorian A-1949" at the facility, where bodies are kept suspended in liquid nitrogen in case future generations learn how to revive them. Johnson writes that in July 2002, shortly after the Red Sox slugger died at age 83, technicians with no medical certification gleefully photographed and used crude equipment to decapitate the majors' last .400 hitter. Williams' severed head was then frozen, and even used for batting practice by a technician trying to dislodge it from a tuna fish can.

      Cryogenics, eugenics, ISIS. It's all about being heedless [sic; hence, needless pun avoided].

  5. Publicly funded.... by aaron4801 · · Score: 2

    ....but most of the images are locked up for six months.

    1. Re:Publicly funded.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't exactly make their case, other than saying it should be a certain way. I don't know how they can call it anachronistic, when it is still a common policy with a lot of publicly funded projects, even if not universal. They talk about the economic impact of the HGP, but don't say if and how much lower that would have been if there was a slight delay in the release of the data. And if it does make a big difference, then that should be more than enough argument to increase the funding of a projects. While not all research scales linearly with money, a lot of research projects can be done much faster if better funded. Regardless, the public does get all of the data on a short timescale, i.e. much shorter than say a research grant or grad student's degree program, which is what can be time sensitive for a lot of research.

    2. Re:Publicly funded.... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Half a year seems like a sensible policy to me. It's not like there will be another encounter with another comet this year. The worst thing that could happen is that an outsider can't hint at something interesting that would warrant closer inspection by the probe as long as it is active - something the scientists involved would miss - but the chances of that seem minuscule (a lot of research is most certainly pre-planned, and the science teams have eyes of their own).

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:Publicly funded.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is to be able to do papers without somebody doing it based on publicly available images.

    4. Re:Publicly funded.... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      but most of the images are locked up for six months.

      Seems a fair trade to me, given the scientists involved has spent anywhere from years to decades working on this project and aren't exactly getting rich in the process.
       
       

      Maybe, but the approach is looking increasingly anachronistic. That's partly because of a new kind of real-time public engagement with science thanks to the Internet; but it's also to do with changes in the way raw scientific data is made available.

      Um, no. The public avidly following the flavor-of-the-month in science isn't particularly new, with the internet and social media it's just become much more visible. (I can remember when three different popular magazines had Voyager's pictures of Jupiter on their cover in the same month.) Nor are there any notable changes in the way raw scientific data is becoming available - the Sentinel system is far and away the exception to the rule.

    5. Re:Publicly funded.... by wooferhound · · Score: 1

      Images fresh out of the camera
      http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov/

      --
      We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
  6. Bigger news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They have pictures of the neck fracturing. Unbelievable luck if they can capture how a comet disintegrates.

  7. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yipppeeeeee!!! Science is wonderful!

  8. Philae by camperdave · · Score: 1

    Did they re-establish contact with the lander, yet?

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    1. Re:Philae by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do people always want something other than what you give them? If there's a Slashdot story about contacting the lander, are you going to ask if there are any new Rosetta images?

  9. Egyptian God names? by gophther · · Score: 0

    Who the hell okayed them naming all the various zones of the comet after Egyptian Gods? How needlessly confusing and stupid is that? Maybe I'm a fuddy duddy, but I think names like "Sonic the Hedgehog" (for a protein) is fucking stupid. Choose something neutral sounding and hierarchical and/or enumerating, if not descriptive, at the very least.