Rosetta - Post Separation Ops at Comet 67P C-G, November 14, 2014 - Options

[JohnVV]

http://imagearchives.esac.esa.int/index.ph...avcam_3d_models

the 60.2 MiB "ESA NavCam shape model"
http://npsadev.esac.esa.int/3D/67/Shapes/C...HIRES_00200.obj
has the underside !!!!

but the highest res is Mattias Malmer's shape model - 319 MiB .obj file
67P_C-G_shape_model_MALMER_2015_11_20.obj
http://mattias.malmer.nu/67pc-g-shapemodel/

[bobik]

Attention: According to Rosetta NOW, Rosetta is on course for a close flyby of 67P, passing at a distance of 9.6 km, and it seems the landing site of Philae is visible during the time of closest approach.

[stevelu]

Cheers all.

I've been surprised to drop by a couple of times and not see any attention here to the brand new OSIRIS images being posted by https://twitter.com/Rosetta_OSIRIS and at https://planetgate.mps.mpg.de/Image_of_the_...fD_archive.html

Here's a rotated crop from the latest, "a dusty comet", taken 6/1/2016 from about 20km using the narrow angle camera.

[scalbers]

Nice to know about this OSIRIS availability. The above image looks like a meteor shower - at the source. Here's another interesting recent view from 9km out.

https://planetgate.mps.mpg.de/Image_of_the_...7549100_F12.jpg

And this one at low phase angle. Here without much in the way of shadows we can see the opposition effect, and some albedo variations.

https://planetgate.mps.mpg.de/Image_of_the_...7549000_F18.jpg

[jccwrt]

That low phase angle image is great for looking at albedo variations once the opposition effect is removed. Really gets the albedo variations to stand out!

[wildespace]

Been a while since anybody posted here.

The newly-released image has captured my atttention, firstly because of the massive (approx 34 m wide) boulder just balancing there on the surface, near the top right corner of the image.

But the most interesting parts for me are near the bottom left corner:



Marked with red arrows are extremely bright areas that are quite clearly below the surface, and look like the inside of a furnace. Are they outgassing sites? What creates so much light in there?

Marked with a green arrow is a lighter-shaded smooth area on the surface. Again, wondering what this is and how it was created.

Any ideas?

[Explorer1]

Probably exposed ice, contrasting with the otherwise dark, low albedo of the rest of the surface. Article here: http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/57189-exposed-i...irmed-as-water/

[wildespace]

Probably exposed ice, contrasting with the otherwise dark, low albedo of the rest of the surface. Article here: http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/57189-exposed-i...irmed-as-water/

Except it looks like an interior environment, seen though just a few small holes in the surface here and there. I'm pretty sure the light we see isn't sunlight reflected off some ice; it has all the hallmarks of emitted light.

Has anything like this been spotted in other Rosetta photos?

[Gerald]

It's definitely reflected sunlight, or might be some additional minor contribution by fluorescence.
The average surface albedo of 67P is near 5%. Even a boulder of black basalt would look bright in contrast. Surface temperatures are rather low now, such that frost might already be rather stable on the surface. They probably stretched the image in a way that the brightest grey scales have been mapped to white, and the darkest to black, not caring about the absolute brightness values. So, straightforward intuitive interpretations can be misleading.

... a conceivable explanation for the occurence of frost would be a boulder of relatively high thermal inertia. It would warm up considerably slower than the surrounding low thermal inertia dust layer after sunrise, and act as a cold trap for volatiles sublimating from the surrounding warmer surface.

[bobik]

On 30 August, one month before the grand finale (the details of which are still not publicly known) Rosetta approached the nucleus to a distance of just 4.4 km.

[Gerald]

Isn't this even the distance to 67P's barycenter? This would then mean a mere distance of about 2.5 km to the surface.

[Phil Stooke]

The latest Rosetta blog includes a great picture of Imhotep, one of the most changeable areas of our cute little comet. Here is a nice comparison of the area nearly two years apart. Many changes but the same overall appearance. Like Io, maybe - always changing, always the same! (except I would expect more lasting changes here).

Phil

[Lucas]

Rosetta is now on a collision course with 67P C-G... impact expected tomorrow (30 September) at 11:20 UT (+-20 min)

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/co...euvre-complete/

Before the burn started, it obtained this wide-angle picture of the comet: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/20...de-angle_camera

[Ron Hobbs]

Descent Images Begin!

[JRehling]

Wow. That first one is worthy of Ansel Adams.