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Comet 67P

A Close Up Look at a Comet as the Rosetta Space Probe Finally Closes in on its Prey

Ten years ago, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta space probe on a ten-year mission to ‘hunt’ Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Over the last few days, Rosetta has finally closed in on its prey, and today ESA scientists put it into ‘orbit’ around the comet (not a natural gravitational orbit yet, but a triangular, thruster-assisted orbit). It will slowly edge closer over coming days and weeks, before eventually deploying the Philae* lander to drop on to the comet itself.

But as part of the celebrations today, the ESA released the amazing image above of the comet (click for higher resolution), taken a few days ago from a distance of around 300km (today Rosetta is only around 100km away). It’s a gnarly looking beast, almost dumbbell shaped with many house-sized boulders visible on its surface (the entire comet is around 4km in diameter). Not to mention that shadowy bit on the end looks like it could easily house an exogorth

With Rosetta in ‘orbit’, the ESA are now updating their website fairly regularly with new images as they are downloaded from the probe…keep an eye on the Rosetta blog and the Rosetta mission image gallery for updates, and what are sure to be jaw-dropping pictures of another world.

* Both Rosetta and Philae are named after the Rosetta Stone and its place of discovery

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