Rosetta to Swoop Down on Comet in February
 
Dec 19, 2014:  The European Space Agency's orbiting Rosetta spacecraft is
expected to come within four miles (six kilometers) of the surface of comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in February of next year. The flyby will be the
closest the comet explorer will come during its prime mission.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOSyNtuWhGk
 
This animation shows Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with overlay boxes
indicating the fields of view of three cameras on the European Space
Agency's Rosetta spacecraft: the wide angle camera of OSIRIS, the narrow
angle camera of OSIRIS and the spacecraft's Navigation Camera.
 
"It is the earliest we could carry it out without impacting the
vitally important bound orbits that are currently being flown," said
Matt Taylor, the Rosetta project scientist from the European Space Research
and Technology Center, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. "As the comet
becomes more and more active, it will not be possible to get so close to
the comet. So this opportunity is very unique."
 
The low flyby will be an opportunity for Rosetta to obtain imagery with a
resolution of a few inches (tens of centimeters) per pixel. The imagery is
expected to provide information on the comet's porosity and albedo (its
reflectance).  The flyby will also allow the study of the processes by
which cometary dust is accelerated by the cometary gas emission.
 
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/rosetta/pia19095/#.VJTAb_8Cc
 
From the location where it came to rest after bounces, the Philae lander of
the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission captured this view of a cliff
on the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The feature is called
"Perihelion Cliff." The image is from the lander's CIVA camera.
Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA "Rosetta is providing us with a
grandstand seat of the comet throughout the next year. This flyby will put
us track side -- it's going to be that close," said Taylor.
 
The Rosetta orbiter deployed its Philae lander to one spot on the comet's
surface in November. Philae obtained the first images taken from a comet's
surface and will provide analysis of the comet's possible primordial
composition.
 
Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the
epoch when our sun and its planets formed. Rosetta will be the first
spacecraft to witness at close proximity how a comet changes as it is
subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation. Observations
will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of our solar
system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water, and
perhaps even life.
 
Rosetta is a European Space Agency mission with contributions from its
member states and NASA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
California, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages the U.S. contribution of the Rosetta mission for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL also built the MIRO
instrument and hosts its principal investigator, Samuel Gulkis. The
Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio and Boulder) developed the
Rosetta orbiter's IES and Alice instruments, and hosts their principal
investigators, James Burch (IES) and Alan Stern (Alice).
 
For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit
http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov
 
More information about Rosetta is available at http://www.esa.int/rosetta
 
Credits:
Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science{at}NASA
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

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