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Rosetta Probe's Comet Reaches Closest Approach To the Sun
An anonymous reader writes: The European Space Agency has released pictures taken by the Rosetta probe at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as it reached closest approach to the Sun. The comet has now travelled 750 million kilometers since Rosetta arrived, and the increased solar radiation has caused ices to sublimate and create jets of gas. "The activity reaches its peak intensity around perihelion and in the weeks that follow – and is clearly visible in the spectacular images returned by the spacecraft in the last months. One image taken by Rosetta's navigation camera was acquired at 01:04 GMT, just an hour before the moment of perihelion, from a distance of around 327 km." They've released both still images and animations of the comet's outgassing. "Rosetta's measurements suggest the comet is spewing up to 300 kg of water vapor – roughly the equivalent of two bathtubs – every second. This is a thousand times more than was observed this time last year when Rosetta first approached the comet. ... Along with gas, the nucleus is also estimated to be shedding up to 1000 kg of dust per second, creating dangerous working conditions for Rosetta." It's a fascinating, close-up look at a comet during its most volatile time.
They could get a lot closer to the sun if they made sure the probe got there at night instead of the daytime. Geez.
Interesting variation in the outgassing rate as the comet rotates! And it's quite clear that the outgassing comes from localized jets, and not from broad areas of the comet, although we'd already seen that from earlier images.
By looking at a very low phase angle (almost into the sun), we're seeing the forward scattering, so the dust shows up brightly-- a good way to look at very fine particles.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
They're fakes. The probe doesn't work because the pinko yoorpans were afraid of nucular radiation and fitted it with hippy-drippy solar panels instead.
It was on hothardware a few months back.
This is all very cool but I think if they can keep the thing transmitting it will be much cooler to see what it observes on the far end of the comet's orbit.
I wonder if a comet hitchhiking probe could be made to passively observe the Oort cloud and wake back up fully to report the next time its comet came back to the inner system.
Comets are going to be an important source of water for the colonists of New Shanghai.
"Roll 'em up."
All space agencies are in on it. Their countries have also all signed the Antarctic Treaty. They know there's more land beyond Antarctica -- and there's nowhere up above to go, the firmament keeps us in.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
"a thousand times more than was observed this time last year"
Is this due to global warming? Why would it be so much greater this time?
Why would it be so much greater this time?
The title of this article answers your question: it's outgassing more because it's closer to the sun now than it was last year. That's what comets do. That's what the word "perihelion" means.
Ever since Richard Feynman said that he had never seen a paper that was written as a result of observations made by the space program and so had ignored it, I've tended to do likewise.
While there is some little value to just mapping the universe, do these observations of the comet facilitate any basic understanding?
I know astrophysics is about using the universe as a giant lab to understand the basic laws of nature but astronomy is largely not.
No, I'm not a Luddite or anti-science. I have a PhD in physics from Caltech.