Category: Rosetta Mission

The Rosetta spacecraft chased down the nearly three-mile-long Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet in 2014. It then spent almost two years capturing detailed images of the comet’s dust-ridden surface. 

The images are publicly available, which allowed Twitter user landru79 to compile a brilliant animation of images shot over a 25-minute period. Taken together, it gives us an idea of what it’s like on that rapidly spinning, oddly-shaped ball of dust and ice.

“This is the well familiar environment in which Rosetta observed for nearly two years — lots of dust flying around!” Matt Taylor, a European Space Agency (ESA) project scientist for the Rosetta mission, said over email.   Read more…

More about Space, Solar System, Comets, European Space Agency, and Rosetta Mission

View More Watch space dust shoot around a comet as it tumbles through our solar system

The Rosetta spacecraft chased down the nearly three-mile-long Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet in 2014. It then spent almost two years capturing detailed images of the comet’s dust-ridden surface. 

The images are publicly available, which allowed Twitter user landru79 to compile a brilliant animation of images shot over a 25-minute period. Taken together, it gives us an idea of what it’s like on that rapidly spinning, oddly-shaped ball of dust and ice.

“This is the well familiar environment in which Rosetta observed for nearly two years — lots of dust flying around!” Matt Taylor, a European Space Agency (ESA) project scientist for the Rosetta mission, said over email.   Read more…

More about Space, Solar System, Comets, European Space Agency, and Rosetta Mission

View More Watch space dust shoot around a comet as it tumbles through our solar system