The European Space Agency ’s Rosetta has give us a more detailed understanding of comets and provided us with outstanding epitome of comet 67P / Churyumov – Gerasimenko during its two age of electron orbit around the objective . The investigation was crashed in September 2016 , but it still provides some unexpected sentiment .
The latest one is animated and was put together by Twitter userlandru79 . It shows what is likely a “ snowstorm ” descend on comet 67P. What we are seeing is the cold atmosphere of the comet light up by the luminosity of the Sun . The probe is or so 13 kilometre ( 8 mil ) from the surface and thesingle imagesfrom the OSIRIS Cam that make up this GIF were take over the blank of about 25 minute .
The GIF proved very pop online and started a racy discussion on the nature of the background object seen disappearing behind the comet . Fortunately , astronomer from the European Space Agency ( ESA ) were at hand to explicate what we see . Mark McCaughrean , a senior consultant for science and geographic expedition at the ESA got involve . He confirmed that the objects are stars . OSIRIS Cam was pointed towards the Canis Major configuration and seize a few asterisk cluster like NGC 2362 ( at the top of the picture ) and NGC 2354 ( near the middle ) .
The stellar field moving vertically as the comet rotates and the investigation moves , combined with the swirling dust tightlipped to the camera , gives the impression that Rosetta is going through a flurry of eccentric . The final footage look like an old pic , with snow taciturnly return on a cliff as the camera pan off .
Rosetta was the third cornerstone mission of ESA ’s Horizon 2000 scheme and carry Philae , the first human probe that successfully land on a comet . Rosetta ’s observations were primal to discovering that thewater on Earthdidn’t add up from comets . Thelast imagethat Rosetta post before its crash was engage when the probe was only 5 meters ( 16 invertebrate foot ) above the Earth’s surface .
The author is nowtrying to createa color reading of this small video but he ’s unsure if it will work . Another Twitter user , lennutrajektoor , repliedto this new undertaking with : “ Jesus ! Even this event is insane . I mean insane ! Totally . I think I demand a 10h interlingual rendition of it ! ” And we wholeheartedly agree .
