 | | | | |
| | | | | |
|
Services Subscribe
| | | | | | | Top class images help ESA's Rosetta prepare to ride on a cosmic bullet
26 February 2002
| ESA’s Comet Rendezvous Mission, which has been selected as a Cornerstone mission of ESA’s long-term science program Horizon 2000.
The mission goal is a rendezvous with comet 46P/Wirtanen. On its eight-year journey to the comet, the spacecraft will fly by close to two asteroids. The spacecraft will map the comet’s surface in fine detail and land a package of instruments (the Rosetta Lander) to study some of the most primitive, un-processed material in the solar system. The mission will provide clues to the physical and chemical processes that marked the systems beginning 4.6 billion years ago.
Rosetta will be launched in January 2003 by an Ariane-5 from Kourou, French Guiana.
Courtesy: Astrium
Credits: Astrium | |  |  | |
| | | | | This image (ESO PR Photo 06a/02) shows a false-colour composite image of the nucleus of Comet Wirtanen, recorded on 9 December 2001, with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m VLT YEPUN Unit Telescope. It is based on four exposures and since the telescope was set to track the motion of the comet in the sky, the images of stars in the field are seen as four consecutive trails. The image of the comet's 'dirty snowball' nucleus is star-like, no surrounding gas or dust is seen and the measured brightness indicates that the diameter is about 1 km. The distance to the comet from the Earth was approximately 534 million km.
Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO) | | | | |
| | | | | In this sequence of images (ESO PR Photo 06b/02) four observations of Comet Wirtanen have been combined to show the motion of the comet (indicated by the arrow).
Credits:European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO) | | | | |
| | | | | ESA’s Comet Rendezvous Mission, which has been selected as a Cornerstone mission of ESA’s long-term science program Horizon 2000.
The mission goal is a rendezvous with comet 46P/Wirtanen. On its eight-year journey to the comet, the spacecraft will fly by close to two asteroids. The spacecraft will map the comet’s surface in fine detail and land a package of instruments (the Rosetta Lander) to study some of the most primitive, un-processed material in the solar system. The mission will provide clues to the physical and chemical processes that marked the systems beginning 4.6 billion years ago.
Rosetta will be launched in January 2003 by an Ariane-5 from Kourou, French Guiana.
Credits: ESA | | | | |
| |
| | Related articles Rosetta Camera to image ice and fireRelated links ESA ScienceRosetta-HomepageESOVery Large TelescopeGiotto
|
HI RES JPG (Size: 
HI RES JPG (Size: 
HI RES JPG (Size: 
HI RES JPG (Size: