Now that we are getting pretty close... which geological features will be revealed in the next days?

For the french community, here's an outreach article that try to answer that question (from the swiss astronomical journal)

the Science cover is just... wow!!!!!!

From the Max Planck release:
"up to today, the sharpest images of Ceres were acquired by HST. Starting end of January 2015, the Framinc Camera images will match and exceed that resolution. From that moment on, we'll enter a new Land."

"...a Trojan Horse to trick an unsuspecting public into engaging with science." So a Nature editorial about the movie, ending with:
"But the film — which must have cost a large chunk of the mission’s public-relations budget — was probably unnecessary. The feat alone is spectacle enough".

The landing was spectacular indeed, but Ambition do was necessary for preparing the public to such event. And set a new standard for science outreach.

Deutschlandfunk says the comet's surface remind of corals... Interesting comparison but might lead to some misunderstanding...

Thank you for the prompt reports from Cité de l´espace Rakhir! Great excitement! It was not possible to see the video conference from germany..

...still no images from the surface..

A farewell NAVCAM image of site J released.

And, as of today, ESA will share all Rosetta/NAVCAM images under a Creative Commons Licence, officially allowing easy sharing, publication and manipulation!

Great work! It looks promising for Philae. Can you tell us how much percent represent the "cyan=good" (<few degree) area?

I would say that ESA made a big step in space outreach by shooting this "Science meets science-fiction" short movie, focusing on the Rosetta mission.

The video can be seen here
or simply by entering ESA website

Great mosaic Ant103!


there was already a discussion of very speculative wind-like formed ridges and ripples few posts ago. Question remain whether the smooth material is hard (e.g., duricrust) or loose.

This is one of the best NavCam shot we saw !! But I admit the choice for a "best of" is not easy.

The material is compositionally completly different from martian sand, but it could still be a granular material (loose or solid) that forms ripple due to some kind of shaking...

I have not seen this very high close up of the landing site J posted here, so here is the image in full resolution. Many wonderful details! thank you ESA

the link works now.

I absolutely agree. I just cropped out images of a boulder seen twice the 14 and 30 September (2.5 m/pixel and 1.4 m/pixel).


The boulder seems to be made of rounded blocks ~25 m wide (white arrows) reminiscent of conglomerates seen on Itokawa.
Are the strata of the comet composed of conglomerates? Did the rounded blocks accreted on the comet parent body? Fascinating object!

I am trying to open the report but the "link to publication" at the ESA website doesn't seem to work for me. Could anyone open and download the report? Thank you.

ADMIN: It downloaded fine from the "link to publication" link for me. The file is 15.1mb and in PDF format. Make sure you have Acrobat available to read the file.

and I think this is the most important point. Whatever happen to the lander, it will be possible to reconstruct its approach and touchdown.

If I am getting this right, is the high number of processes that the computer needs to handle during descent (although is free fall) that prevent transmitting images ? Will Philae transmit live any telemetry at all to Rosetta before touchdown?
I am just thinking about the improvements that could be made for a next generation landing probe...

Great information, thank you!!
ROLIS will take nadir images all the way down from the separation to landing and I am sure the images will be of high scientific values, but as I am reading in the document, the images will be uplinked to Rosetta only after touchdown. Was there no way to transmit the images as quickly as possible, without waiting for the landing?

My background assumption was that this material is very loose, so thrust faults and wrinkle ridges could not form on it. On the other hand, if they can, surface shrinkage as you suggested, or surface shaking could be responsable for their formation.

Very nice mosaic! Some of these days I´ll need to print a large poster of the comet for my wall I allowed myself to use the image to pinpoint few surface features that looks peculiar. See image below. It looks like the smooth material forms linear/curvilinear reliefs, like dunes (!). Is the smooth material draping some underlying structural lineations (usually, however, the fine grained material goes to topographic lows)? Or is a construct made of smooth material, like dune? On the comet there is no atmosphere, but a lot of gas and jets…

here is the replay of today's landing site announcement:

http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/20...te_announcement

I agree that some morphologies on the comet, e.g., shape of the "rocky" outcrops (with pinnacles, sets of fractures and blocky appearance) and adjacent smooth areas and boulders, are reminiscent of reliefs on Earth, e.g., wind eroded granit. Now, the rock type is completely different, perhaps, like Gerald suggested, the most similar rock on Earth is pumice (porous but with strength). My guess is that the similar morphologies derive from similar processes. On the latest OSIRIS image (center up) there is a field of boulders just at the foot of a wall with pinnacles, suggesting (to me) scarp retreat by rockfall. On 67P the retreat might be driven by ice sublimation. On Earth, scarp retreat can be due to physical weathering (changing temperature), wind, ect.

What is alien about it is that despite different gravity and temperature conditions, and despite different rock types (=completely different environment of rock formation) the resulting local-scale morphologies are surprisingly similar!

@Malmer. Great un-colored image: the “unit boundaries” can be better seen now. No, I haven´t found the original image neither.

I agree that the emission region seems to be visible in that navcam frame, or is at least close to the horizon. I'll try with this (very) tentative location. I have also broadly located the region in the 8 August frame.

The emission region might be related to the flat area of the neck, but not exactly where the "boulders"/spurs outcrop from the "dusty" surface. Or am I going too far with the interpretation?

Thank you for the link!