Getting to know Rosetta’s comet

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28 January 2015

It’s been hundreds of years since Christopher Columbus sailed the Earth discovering new worlds — but don’t let anyone tell you that the Age of Exploration is over. The Universe is vast and full of mysteries to uncover, like the world of Comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko which is currently being explored by the Rosetta spacecraft.

Since it arrived at the comet in August last year, Rosetta has examined over two-thirds of the comet’s surface and it’s turned out more interesting than expected. The landscape is an exciting mix, with some regions covered in thick dust and others defined by rocky cliffs and canyons. Other areas host huge trenches, pits and boulders or smooth deserts.

Many of the steep cliff faces on Rosetta are covered in dangerous-looking cracks. The biggest crack is 500-metres long – that’s like five football pitches long!

Another exciting feature are jets that have been seen rising from the pits scattered across the comet’s surface. The gas escaping from these jets act a bit like the wind on Earth, moving dust around on the surface. This sometimes creates ripples across the surface like those you sometimes see at the beach when the tide goes out.

In the few months that Rosetta has travelled alongside the comet we have already learned so much. As Rosetta collects more and more data over the next year, scientists are confident they’ll be able to finally answer some important questions about how our Solar System formed!

Cool Fact: A day on Rosetta’s comet is half the length of an Earth day, just 12 hours. But it takes 6 times longer than Earth to go around the Sun once.

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