Rosetta probe has sent back data on the comet’s size, temperature, and gases.
As reported by BBC News, the European Space Agency has released highly detailed images of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The images are available as .wrl and .obj files from the ESA’s website. So detailed are the images that people with the proper software and a 3D printer should be able to fabricate a physical model of the comet.
The images also provide the most precise estimates of 67P’s actual dimensions. Earlier reports described the comet as approximately four kilometers in diameter. Now, the new images indicate dimensions of 2.5 km by 2.5 km by 2.0 km for the head, the smaller of the comet’s two lobes, and 4.1 km by 3.2 km by 1.3 km for the body, the bigger lobe.
Previously studies showed the comet’s mass to be about 10 billion tons, with a density of 400 kilograms per cubic meter. The comet completes one rotation every 12.4043 hours. The comet’s surface temperature is between minus 68 degrees Celsius and minus 43 C, while the subsurface temperature is between minus 243 C and minus 113 C. Rosetta has detected water, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and methanol, all in gaseous form, on the comet.
Future information on 67P will include its albedo – that is, the amount of light it reflects – and even high resolution images captured by Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera.
Rosetta rendezvoused with the comet in August; both are about 464 million kilometers from Earth. The next major event in Rosetta’s sojourn, accompanying 67P as it moves deeper into the solar system, will be the deployment of the Philae lander. Philae will separate from Rosetta on November 12 and attempt to land on the comet’s head in a maneuver lasting around seven hours.
Rosetta will stay with 67P for over a year as the comet’s orbit takes it nearer the Sun and then back out towards the distant reaches of the solar system. The comet completes one orbit every 6.5 years, going out beyond Jupiter at its farthest point and between Earth and Mars at its closest point.
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