Mission scientist reacts to historic first images from the surface of a comet

Comet 2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is putting on a fine showing in the pre-dawn northern sky after emerging intact from perihelion (closest point to the Sun).

Ever since it was realised that asteroid and comet impacts are a real and present danger to the survival of life on Earth, it was thought that most of those objects end their existence by plunging into the Sun. But a new study finds instead that most of those objects are destroyed in a drawn out, long hot fizzle, much farther from the Sun than previously thought.

Put on your red-blue 3D glasses to appreciate this view of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen by Philae’s ROLIS imaging system from a distance of 2 miles (3 km).