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.
As NASA’s Dawn spacecraft heads for its historic rendezvous with dwarf planet Ceres next week, further mysteries unfold on the small world. Now seen in higher resolution, a volcano-like bright spot has a nearby companion.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is now less than two months away from capture into orbit around Ceres for a 16-month study of the dwarf planet — and its cameras are already revealing tantalising surface details.