Live coverage: Rosetta’s final hours

Scientists have released new findings from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, adding fresh pages to a catalog of comet data that officials promise will swell with more discoveries over the rest of the year.

The Hapi region of 67P is located between the comet’s two lobes and has proven to be particularly active, displaying a bluish reflectivity spectrum in colour images captured with Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera. This strongly suggests that frozen water is mixed with the dust at the surface.

Scientists from Rosetta’s OSIRIS team have discovered an extraordinary formation in the Aker region on the larger lobe of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The largest of a group of three boulders with a diameter of approximately 30 metres appears to perch on the rim of a small depression. There seems to be only a very small contact area with the nucleus.