Rosetta Probe's Comet Reaches Closest Approach To the Sun 16
An anonymous reader writes: The European Space Agency has released pictures taken by the Rosetta probe at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as it reached closest approach to the Sun. The comet has now travelled 750 million kilometers since Rosetta arrived, and the increased solar radiation has caused ices to sublimate and create jets of gas. "The activity reaches its peak intensity around perihelion and in the weeks that follow – and is clearly visible in the spectacular images returned by the spacecraft in the last months. One image taken by Rosetta's navigation camera was acquired at 01:04 GMT, just an hour before the moment of perihelion, from a distance of around 327 km." They've released both still images and animations of the comet's outgassing. "Rosetta's measurements suggest the comet is spewing up to 300 kg of water vapor – roughly the equivalent of two bathtubs – every second. This is a thousand times more than was observed this time last year when Rosetta first approached the comet. ... Along with gas, the nucleus is also estimated to be shedding up to 1000 kg of dust per second, creating dangerous working conditions for Rosetta." It's a fascinating, close-up look at a comet during its most volatile time.
Dumbasses (Score:4, Funny)
They could get a lot closer to the sun if they made sure the probe got there at night instead of the daytime. Geez.
Re: (Score:1)
Now that was an outgassing straight from uranus.
Interesting variation! (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting variation in the outgassing rate as the comet rotates! And it's quite clear that the outgassing comes from localized jets, and not from broad areas of the comet, although we'd already seen that from earlier images.
By looking at a very low phase angle (almost into the sun), we're seeing the forward scattering, so the dust shows up brightly-- a good way to look at very fine particles.
outbound loop... (Score:2)
This is all very cool but I think if they can keep the thing transmitting it will be much cooler to see what it observes on the far end of the comet's orbit.
I wonder if a comet hitchhiking probe could be made to passively observe the Oort cloud and wake back up fully to report the next time its comet came back to the inner system.
Re: (Score:2)
This is all very cool but I think if they can keep the thing transmitting it will be much cooler to see what it observes on the far end of the comet's orbit.
I wonder if a comet hitchhiking probe could be made to passively observe the Oort cloud and wake back up fully to report the next time its comet came back to the inner system.
67P doesn't make it all the way out to the Oort cloud, I'm afraid; it is a short-period comet. Barely gets past the orbit of Jupiter.
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx... [phys.org]
--that's why Rosetta could rendezvous with it.
--if it did go all the way out to the Oort cloud, though, the probe wouldn't be generating any power to speak of at that distance, and hence wouldn't make any observations. Even if it did wake up next time round, all it would report was "I didn't see anything because I was turned off."
Re: (Score:2)
If we are going to make additional forays into the Oort cloud, then we are going to need more fuel for the RTGs to power them.
Most use Pu 238, which is in relatively short supply. There is a current proposal to use Am (Americenium) on an interstellar probe, but I do not know if they even have a working model yet
Re: (Score:2)
the probe wouldn't be generating any power to speak of at that distance, and hence wouldn't make any observations
The Voyager probes are way the heck out there and still have power. The nuclear source they use is what's needed for a long term comet hitchhiker.
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The Voyager probes have turned off most of their instruments and are still going to die in a few years, and it takes longer to reach the oort cloud.
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Very highly unlikely. The Oort cloud is a mindboggling distance away. You would need to be able to engineer something that can survive a round trip of anywhere between ninety thousand [wikipedia.org] and six million years [wikipedia.org]. Then you need to figure out a way to let someone who may or may not even be recognisably human, let alone able to speak the same language, know when it comes back, so they can collect the data.
Amazing to see this happening close up (Score:3)
Comets are going to be an important source of water for the colonists of New Shanghai.
To quote Clark Griswald (Score:3)
The ESA has the same masters as NASA (Score:2)