Rosetta conducted a manoeuvre today – a thruster burn that lasted 82 seconds – and it was completed as planned, Spacecraft Operations Manager Sylvain Lodiot has confirmed. http://youtu.be/4a3eY5siRRk "The burn looks OK from telemetry,...
Posted on 29/10/2014 by emily
This four-image NAVCAM mosaic comprises images taken on 26 October from a distance of 9.8 km from the centre of comet 67P/C-G – about 7.8 km from the surface. The corresponding image scale is about 66 cm/pixel,...
Posted on 29/10/2014 by emily
Early in September we reported that Rosetta’s COSIMA instrument, the COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser, had detected its first dust grains. Now some results from the first compositional analyses are in, as Martin Hilchenbach reports for the COSIMA...
Posted on 27/10/2014 by emily
This four-image NAVCAM montage comprises images taken on 24 October from a distance of 9.8 km from the centre of comet 67P/C-G – about 7.8 km from the surface. The corresponding image scale is about 66 cm/pixel,...
Posted on 24/10/2014 by emily
This four-image NAVCAM montage comprises images taken on 20 October from a distance of 9.4 km from the centre of comet 67P/C-G – about 7.4 km from the surface. In this orientation the smaller lobe of the...
Posted on 24/10/2014 by Claudia
We're one step closer to knowing the name of Philae's landing site. By the time the competition closed, we had received more than 8000 proposals for a new name for the location, currently known as Site J....
Posted on 23/10/2014 by emily
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is showing a gradual, but clear, increase in activity, as can be seen in the latest images provided by the OSIRIS team. While images obtained a few months ago showed distinct jets of dust leaving...
Posted on 23/10/2014 by emily
With inputs from Kathrin Altwegg, ROSINA science team, University of Bern. Since early August, the Rosetta Orbiter Sensor for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) has been ‘sniffing the fumes’ of 67P/C-G with its two mass spectrometers. As...
Posted on 22/10/2014 by emily
This four-image NAVCAM montage comprises images taken on 18 October from a distance of 9.9 km from the centre of Comet 67P/C-G – about 7.9 km from the surface, not long after the image published Monday was...
Posted on 21/10/2014 by Claudia
As the contest to name the landing site on comet 67P/C-G draws to a close, we took another trip into the mission's past, this time chasing the origin of Philae's name. While the name of Rosetta was...
Posted on 20/10/2014 by emily
This four-image NAVCAM montage comprises images taken on 18 October from a distance of 9.8 km from the centre of comet 67P/C-G – about 7.8 km from the surface. The four 1024 x 1024 pixel images making...
Posted on 20/10/2014 by Claudia
Rosetta's comet was discovered in 1969 by two Ukranian astronomers, Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko, who first observed it from the Institute of Astrophysics in Alma-Ata (now named Almaty), Kazakhstan. To their delight, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was selected...
Posted on 17/10/2014 by Claudia
Yesterday we launched a competition inviting members of the public to propose a name for Philae's landing site. While many of you might be busy thinking of a good name to replace “Site J”, we thought to...
Posted on 17/10/2014 by Claudia
This is a tale of two comets. One is a periodic comet, the other a newcomer to the inner Solar System. One has a well known and predictable orbit of six and a half years, the other...
Posted on 17/10/2014 by Claudia
This four-image NAVCAM montage comprises images taken on 15 October from a distance of 9.9 km from the centre of comet 67P/C-G – just ~7.9 km from the surface! The orientation is such that we’re looking down...