ESA’s Rosetta mission – Astronomy Now

Bouncing boulders and collapsing cliffs on comet 67P

20 September 2019 Astronomy Now

Sifting through images from ESA’s Rosetta mission, researchers are learning more about the properties of comet 67P by studying where boulders fall and cliffs collapse.

Evidence found for ‘giant comet’ theory of Pluto’s origin

26 May 2018 William Harwood

Data collected by NASA’s New Horizons probe and ESA’s Rosetta mission suggest Pluto might have formed from the accretion of a billion or so smaller bodies similar to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and other Kuiper Belt objects.

Jets seen by Rosetta caused by comet’s strange shape

25 May 2018 Astronomy Now

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft observed unusual jets of gas and dust spewing from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko every morning as the sun came up. A new study shows those jets formed as a result of the comet’s strange topography.

Project scientist Matt Taylor speaks about Rosetta’s final moments

30 September 2016 Astronomy Now

The Rosetta project scientist Matt Taylor speaks on the emotion of witnessing the end of the Rosetta spacecraft as it descended to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and looks forward to the scientific bounty contained in the huge volume of data collected over the last two years.

Camera scientist presents final images taken before Rosetta’s crash landing

30 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Holger Sierks, principal investigator for Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera presents the images from the final seconds of the mission just prior to touchdown on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Live coverage: Rosetta’s final hours

30 September 2016 Stephen Clark

Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft will close out a historic 4.9-billion-mile journey Friday with a slow-speed crash into the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the tiny world it has studied for the last two years, capturing some of the mission’s best science data to help unravel the inner workings of the comet. Confirmation of the crash landing should arrive on Earth around 1218 BST.

European Rosetta spacecraft poised for comet crash landing

29 September 2016 William Harwood

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft closed in Thursday for a deliberate crash landing on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Friday, a slow-motion kamikaze plunge to bring the enormously successful mission to an end after more than two years of unprecedented close-range observations.

Flight director explains how Rosetta will descend to the comet’s surface

29 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Rosetta flight director Andrea Accomazzo tells us in this video interview how the Rosetta spacecraft will make its final plunge towards the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

No large caverns found inside Comet 67P

4 February 2016 Astronomy Now

Comets are known to be a mixture of dust and ice, and if fully compact, they would be heavier than water. However, measurements have shown some of them to have densities much lower than that of water ice, implying that comets must be highly porous. A new study of low-density Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko using data from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft rules out a cavernous interior.