Rosetta Watches Comet 67P Tumbling Through Space

(Before It's News)

Animation of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko rotating as seen by Rosetta on June 27-28, 2014

This is really getting exciting! ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft (and the piggybacked Philae lander) are in the home stretch to arrive at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 34 days and the comet is showing up quite nicely in Rosetta’s narrow-angle camera. The animation above, assembled from 36 NAC images acquired last week, shows 67P/C-G rotating over a total elapsed time of 12.4 hours. No longer just an extra-bright pixel, it looks like a thing now!

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: animation, comet, Comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko, esa, nucleus, rosetta, rotation, Solar System

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