Rosetta Spacecraft's Comet Target: 5 Strange Facts. A probe flying through deep space has been beaming back amazing photos and information about its target comet since arriving at the cosmic body in August. After a 10-year trek through the solar system, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has made some amazing discoveries about Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. From its color to its shape, mission controllers have been surprised by Rosetta's seemingly odd target. "I feel that this is really a historic moment in science," Holger Sierks, one of the principle investigators for an instrument on the mission, said on in a Sept. 15 press conference.
"It's unprecedented … It's a quantum step in cometary science. " [See amazing Rosetta mission photos] And more weird findings could be on the horizon. Here are five strange facts about Rosetta's target, Comet 67P/C-G: It's going to be harpooned Rosetta has been traveling through space with another spacecraft, the Philae lander. It may hold secrets on the origins of life It's "dry like hell" Weird Comet Is Darker Than Charcoal, Rosetta Spacecraft Reveals. A spacecraft chasing a comet in deep space has found that its target is surprisingly dark in color.
Instead of arriving at a bright, reflective, ice-covered heavenly body, the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe found that its target comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (or 67P/C-G), appears darker than charcoal in some wavelengths of light, according to new data collected by an instrument on the spacecraft. And, so far, scientists working with the Alice instrument on Rosetta have not found any large patches of water-ice on Comet 67P/C-G's surface. "We're a bit surprised at just how unreflective the comet's surface is and how little evidence of exposed water-ice it shows," Alan Stern, Alice principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement.
[See photos of comet 67P by Rosetta] A four-image montage of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken by Rosetta on Sept. 2, 2014. The Alice instrument before flying to space with Rosetta. A preliminary map of Rosetta’s comet. Posted on 08/09/2014 by emily Scientists working on images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko have divided the comet’s surface into a number of different regions based on their morphology, revealing a unique, multifaceted world. Several morphologically different regions are indicated in this preliminary map, which is oriented with the comet’s ‘body’ in the foreground and the ‘head’ in the background. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA The map and new high-resolution images from the OSIRIS instrument were presented during the Rosetta special session at EPSC today. With various areas dominated by cliffs, depressions, craters, boulders or even parallel grooves, 67P/C-G displays a multitude of different terrains.
Jagged cliffs and prominent boulders are visible in this image taken by OSIRIS on 5 September 2014 from a distance of 62 kilometres from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Ancient Asteroid Destroyer Finally Found, And It's a New Kind of Meteorite. For 50 years, scientists have wondered what annihilated the ancestor of L-chondrites, the roof-smashing, head-bonking meteorites that frequently pummel Earth. Now, a new kind of meteorite discovered in a southern Sweden limestone quarry may finally solve the mystery, scientists report. The strange new rock may be the missing "other half" from one of the biggest interstellar collisions in a billion years. "Something we didn't really know about before was flying around and crashed into the L-chondrites," said study co-author Gary Huss of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
The space rock is a 470-million-year-old fossil meteorite first spotted three years ago by workers at Sweden's Thorsberg quarry, where stonecutters have an expert eye for extraterrestrial objects. Quarriers have plucked 101 fossil meteorites from the pit's ancient pink limestone in the last two decades. [Photos: New Kind of Meteorite Found in Sweden] Mysterious find New kind of fossil meteoriteCredit: B. Ancient wreckage. Asteroid impact avoidance. Artist's impression of a major impact event. The collision between Earth and an asteroid a few kilometres in diameter releases as much energy as the simultaneous detonation of several million nuclear bombs.
Asteroid impact avoidance comprises a number of methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) could be diverted, preventing destructive impact events. A sufficiently large impact by an asteroid or other NEOs would cause, depending on its impact location, massive tsunamis, multiple firestorms and an impact winter caused by the sunlight blocking effect of placing large quantities of pulverized rock dust into the stratosphere.
Massive impacts may also cause volcanic mantle pluming at the antipodal point.[1] This volcanism, if energetic enough, could compound the effects of the impact by creating a volcanic winter, irrespective of the other impact effects. Deflection efforts[edit] History of government mandates[edit] U.S. The U.S. Ongoing projects[edit] Prospective projects[edit] Results[edit]