More images from Rosetta
The comet that Rosetta will orbit is getting stranger and stranger, with new images suggesting that it is really two objects stuck together.
The pictures show that 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko appears to be not one but two objects joined together. It is what scientists call a “contact binary”. How the comet came to take this form is unknown. It is possible that 67P suffered a major fracture at some point in its past; it is also possible the two parts have totally different origins.
What is clear is that the European Space Agency (Esa) mission team now has additional and unexpected considerations as it plans how to land on the comet later this year – not least, which part of the comet should be chosen for contact?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The comet that Rosetta will orbit is getting stranger and stranger, with new images suggesting that it is really two objects stuck together.
The pictures show that 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko appears to be not one but two objects joined together. It is what scientists call a “contact binary”. How the comet came to take this form is unknown. It is possible that 67P suffered a major fracture at some point in its past; it is also possible the two parts have totally different origins.
What is clear is that the European Space Agency (Esa) mission team now has additional and unexpected considerations as it plans how to land on the comet later this year – not least, which part of the comet should be chosen for contact?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Paging Richard C. Hoagland……….. Paging Richard C. Hoagland. LOL