With less than one day until Rosetta deploys Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, here is a set of images to compare the size of the comet with a few cities across Europe.
Let’s start with Darmstadt, Germany, home to ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) where the international media event following the comet landing is taking place this week.
Comet 67P/C-G over Darmstadt, Germany. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Navcam; Map data ©2014 Google, Bluesky
Other European cities close to ESA’s establishments are also featured below:
- Paris, France, home to ESA’s Headquarters;
- Amsterdam, close to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands;
- Rome, close to ESA’s centre for Earth observation (ESRIN) in Frascati, Italy;
- Madrid, close to the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) at Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain;
- London, close to European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) in Harwell, Oxfordshire, UK.
Discussion: 16 comments
Hey, how about a comparison for us envious Americans? Might I suggest the distance between the Lincoln Memorial and the National Capitol. (It’s about 2.5 miles.)
Then, if you want to go ahead and drop 67P/C-G right on top of Congress, that would be just fine. Maybe that would capture their attention.
Love the blog. Thanks!
Yeah, or about 10 Empire State buildings in a line.
thanks for showing the update on this
I would never have thought that it was going to bounce that many times… and isn’t it a miracle that your computers can predict that it is going to land smack dab in the middle of so many of Europe’s major cities!
Good luck with the evacuations!
Ok… that comment actually made me laugh
I guess you’d have to evacute to another planet. The movie Deep Impact for instance had a half as big one coming down. 🙂
Nah, no evacuation; you’d just have to sit and watch the rest of the movie.
Nice, but… the straight distance between the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre museum in Paris is 3.3 km to be more precise, not 4.1 km! Maybe Philae could land on the Place de la Concorde in the middle of which stands since 1836 the Luxor obelisk, another egyptian stone decorated with hieroglyphs… as the Rosetta stone does! 😉 But… finally no: you know, the Gauls only feared of the sky falling on their head! 🙂 Ok, not so important, good luck Philae!
واضح ان الموضوع شيق لكن مافهمته كامل بسبب اللغة طبعاً
شكرا لكم وسعتوا صدورنا
Hello Satwa. I’m glad the English course went well for you. It is very iteresting isn’t it.
Yes because English is the only language in the world amIrite?
On topic: these pictures shure are interesting. Given the devastation that much smaller celestial objects can cause it’s a good thing that this one is at a safe distance! Bravo to ESA for the mission so far and good luck in 1h37m!
“Mission accomplished!” Thanks, Brad.
I don’t think the sun is ever at 90 degree angle in any European city to produce such a shadow.
Good comparisons though.
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko looks like the Rubber Duck of Florentijn Hofman: http://www.florentijnhofman.nl/dev/project.php?id=197 😉
Hi,
I created an additional rendering comparing the size of 67P nucleus to Brusssels
See at https://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/Illustrations/comete-67p-bruxelles.jpg
Can you please make a picture with Lisbon, Portugal?