Rosetta's Selfie
On October 7th, the Rosetta spacecraft not only took a picture of nearby comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (about 16 kilometers away), but it also managed to take a picture of its' 14 meter long solar arrays. The comet has what is called a double-lobed nucleus, with dust and gas streaming away from it. The high contrast image was taken by a CIVA camera on the Philae lander, that is attached to the Rosetta spacecraft. This lander has a plan to soon land on the smaller lobe of the comet's nucleus, leaving the Rosetta on November 12 and snapping a picture of the orbiter before it leaves. The spacecraft is 472 million kilometers away from Earth! The high contrast image created is beautiful and I find it incredible how far technology has come.
No comments:
Post a Comment