logo
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 4 1 2 3 4
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Here is a photo of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, known familiarly as Comet C-G.

It was taken by Rosetta's navigation camera on May 20 at a distance of just over 100 miles away. Rosetta has been closer than that to the comet, but the really interesting thing about this picture is that we can see that C-G is getting more active. The activity will intensify as it gets ever closer to the Sun. The closest approach will be in August.




Last edited by Mona - Astronomy; 07/07/16 01:31 AM.

Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Sponsored Post Advertisement
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Alice is a NASA spectrograph on board Rosetta. The Alice measurements are showing that the water and carbon dioxide in the comet's coma (atmosphere) come from plumes erupting from the surface. They're produced by a two-step process.

This is interesting for various reasons. One is that it's a process that scientists had never realized existed before. Another is that a similar process occurs on Jupiter's moon Europa. The Hubble Space Telescope discovered that.

Astrochemistry is a growing discipline in astronomy, and it rounds out our understanding of the Solar System. Space telescopes and space probes push the boundaries of what we can find out from Earth.


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta team is still looking for the lost lander Philae. Philae made the landing, but failed to engage the surface and bounced off a few times. They've been investigating photos taken, searching for Philae-sized objects. This is a collection of four promising candidates, three of which have now been eliminated. They're still hopeful about the fourth one.


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Two days ago ESA confirmed that the Rosetta mission will be extended until the end of September 2016, at which point the spacecraft will most likely be landed on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

This means they will be able to continue to study the comet as it moves away from the Sun. They'll be able to try some riskier investigations that wouldn't have been worthwhile earlier in the mission.


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Here is an image of Comet 67P/C-G taken last week by Rosetta's NAVCAM. The image has been processed to show more detail of the comet's activity as it's warming.


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
The Rosetta/Philae outreach team has won the Sir Arthur Clarke Award for Space Achievement – Education and Outreach, 2015. The Sir Arthur Clarke Awards have been presented annually in the UK since 2005 to recognise and reward notable or outstanding achievements in, or contributions to, all space activities. They're sponsored by the UK Space Agency in collaboration with the British Interplanetary Society and Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

The award committee’s citation noted that the team “turned a great scientific achievement into a really great popular science outreach achievement. They had the most engaged audience for a space event for a very long time, having created an extremely wide range of publicity material . . . They produced brochures, models, and posters and put out a continuous stream of blog posts, tweets, hang-outs, and a series of ‘Comet Hunter’ videos on Euronews to keep everyone up-to-date . . . . They also made brilliant teaching/educational resources available.”


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Sadly, we haven't heard from Philae lately. But Rosetta is very busy. The craft has been moved to what they hope will be a safe distance from the comet. It's less than two weeks to perihelion (the closest point to the Sun) and the increased activity could damage Rosetta if it's too close.

But ESA has released a wonderful set of images of the Imhotep region of the comet. I'd never thought of the nucleus of a comet as any more than a snowy dirt ball, but there is a surprising amount of geological diversity. Here is a mosaic of six images of Imhotep. (BTW They were taken from different distances, so the scale of the features varies.)

There's also a map of the region's features.


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Philae landed where it was supposed to, but it couldn't stay there. The system that would have secured Philae to the comet's surface didn't work. But there's more – apparently the landing site was covered in several inches of loose material, so the foot screws had nothing to hang onto. This soft dirt is as much as 2m (6-1/2 feet) deep in some places, while other places are rock hard. All of that is something Philae learned during the sixty hours of battery operation.

And there's lots more. In fact, there are seven scientific papers worth of information about Comet C-G which were published in Science recently. For example, up to 85% of the comet is hollow. And Philae found 16 organic compounds, four of them not detected in a comet before. These are the chemicals of life. That doesn't mean there's actually anything alive on the comet, but that it contains the sort of material from which life might arise. Perhaps in a place like Earth.


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Two pictures of Comet C-G, taken August 6, 2014 & August 6, 2015.

On the left is last year's photo, taken by Rosetta's NavCam on rendezvous day, at about 120 km away from the comet. The shape of the double-lobed comet was still new and strange at the time. It's quite familiar now. And during the last year Rosetta has orbited at various distances – from as close as 6 km (nearly 4 miles) to Comet C-G, and out to a few hundred kilometers. On the right is a picture taken just last week at 261 km (162 mi) from the comet.

During the year the comet has moved much closer to the Sun, from 540 million km to around 186 million km this week. The increase in the intensity of the Sun's energy has warmed the frozen ices and turned them to gas. The gases and some dust escape and form the comet's coma. All of the increased activity mean that Rosetta, for safety reasons, is currently operating at around 300 km (185 mi) away from the comet.


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
OP Offline
BellaOnline Editor
Renaissance Human
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,890
Likes: 30
Tomorrow (August 13) Comet C-G reaches perihelion. An orbit's perihelion is the closest point to the Sun. When the comet is that close, even dark areas will be brightly lit. Its activity will get higher after perihelion, but outbursts can happen any time.

The biggest outburst so far happened on July 29. Rosetta found that the erupting material from the comet was strong enough to push away the solar wind. (The Sun emits a stream of atomic particles that flow through the Solar System – it's called the solar wind.) The July eruption is shown here. Nothing was happening in the first picture, but the eruption is in full swing in the next picture 18 minutes later, and after another 18 minutes there are only traces of activity. (I admit that I can't see any traces.)

Carsten Güttler at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany commented, “Usually, the jets are quite faint compared to the nucleus and we need to stretch the contrast of the images to make them visible – but this one is brighter than the nucleus.”


Mona Evans
For news, activities, pictures and more, sign up to the Astronomy Newsletter!

http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/astronomy
Page 1 of 4 1 2 3 4

Moderated by  Mona - Astronomy 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Brand New Posts
MyHeritage & OldNews
by Angie - 03/16/24 09:15 AM
Psalm for the day
by Angie - 03/16/24 08:27 AM
Denmark's Oscar Entry "The Promised Land"
by Angela - Drama Movies - 03/15/24 08:51 PM
Stunning jewelry by Devon Leigh
by sarae - 03/15/24 12:58 PM
From Candlemas to March Equinox
by Mona - Astronomy - 03/14/24 07:35 PM
2024 - on this day in the past ...
by Mona - Astronomy - 03/14/24 07:12 PM
A Lenten Reflection
by Angie - 03/13/24 09:24 PM
Stitching by Hand
by Cheryl - Sewing Editor - 03/13/24 04:21 PM
Lucy Lawless Directs New Documentary
by Angela - Drama Movies - 03/12/24 05:47 PM
Inspiration Quote
by Angie - 03/10/24 03:09 PM
Sponsor
Safety
We take forum safety very seriously here at BellaOnline. Please be sure to read through our Forum Guidelines. Let us know if you have any questions or comments!
Privacy
This forum uses cookies to ensure smooth navigation from page to page of a thread. If you choose to register and provide your email, that email is solely used to get your password to you and updates on any topics you choose to watch. Nothing else. Ask with any questions!


| About BellaOnline | Privacy Policy | Advertising | Become an Editor |
Website copyright © 2022 Minerva WebWorks LLC. All rights reserved.


Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5