Jets on Comet 67P/C-G now persist into the night
Cool image time! Rosetta’s high resolution camera is now finding that, due to increased activity as Comet 67P/C-G approaches the sun, jets of material now continue to evaporate off the surface even after sunset.
“Only recently have we begun to observe dust jets persisting even after sunset”, says OSIRIS Principal Investigator Holger Sierks from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany. In the past months, the comet’s activity originated from illuminated areas on the day side. As soon as the Sun set, these jets subsided and did not re-awake until after the next sunrise. (An exception poses an image from 12 March, 2015 showing the onset of a dust jet on the brink of dawn.)
According to OSIRIS scientists, the jets now occurring even after sunset are another sign of the comet’s increasing activity. “Currently, 67P is rapidly approaching perihelion in mid-August”, says Sierks. At the time the image was taken, comet and Sun were only 270 million kilometers apart. “The solar irradiation is getting more and more intense, the illuminated surface warmer and warmer”, Sierks adds.
Because the jets are now remaining active into the night, it is allowing us to see more precisely their points of origin on the surface, which can then be studied more closely in daylight. Previously it was difficult in daylight to pinpoint the exact spot where the jets began.
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Cool image time! Rosetta’s high resolution camera is now finding that, due to increased activity as Comet 67P/C-G approaches the sun, jets of material now continue to evaporate off the surface even after sunset.
“Only recently have we begun to observe dust jets persisting even after sunset”, says OSIRIS Principal Investigator Holger Sierks from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany. In the past months, the comet’s activity originated from illuminated areas on the day side. As soon as the Sun set, these jets subsided and did not re-awake until after the next sunrise. (An exception poses an image from 12 March, 2015 showing the onset of a dust jet on the brink of dawn.)
According to OSIRIS scientists, the jets now occurring even after sunset are another sign of the comet’s increasing activity. “Currently, 67P is rapidly approaching perihelion in mid-August”, says Sierks. At the time the image was taken, comet and Sun were only 270 million kilometers apart. “The solar irradiation is getting more and more intense, the illuminated surface warmer and warmer”, Sierks adds.
Because the jets are now remaining active into the night, it is allowing us to see more precisely their points of origin on the surface, which can then be studied more closely in daylight. Previously it was difficult in daylight to pinpoint the exact spot where the jets began.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
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