Today’s CometWatch entry is an image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken on 6 August 2015, exactly a year to the day of Rosetta’s historic rendezvous. The image was taken 261 km from the comet centre.
Comet 67P/C-G on 6 August (with contrasts enhanced) from a distance of 261 km. With a scale of 22.3 m/pixel, the image measures 22.8 km across. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
Currently, the comet is around 186 million km from the Sun, and it will reach perihelion – the closest point to the Sun along its orbit – next Thursday. This image shows an intense comet activity, with prominent outflows and jets of material and the unlit patches of the nucleus standing out as a silhouette against the overall bright background.
Due to the increased concentration of gas and dust over the last few months, Rosetta is now studying the comet from safer distances, and is currently operating some 300 km out.
In the spirit of celebrating Rosetta’s first year at the comet, we tried to compare this image with one that was taken exactly one year ago, on rendezvous day, 6 August 2014. The result was posted as ESA’s Space Science Image of the Week.
The original 1024 x 1024 pixel image for today’s CometWatch entry is provided below:
Discussion: 10 comments
That cookie is really toasting [chocolate chips?] 😉
Dust Motes
6 August 15 Navcam
This ESA Blog image was further enhanced to delineate dust particles and debris in the vicinity of the Rosetta spacecraft.
This is a very crowded place !!
https://univ.smugmug.com/Rosetta-Philae-Mission/Rosetta-Dust-Jets/i-tD2LtRX/0/L/ESA_Rosetta_NavCam_20150806_LR–enh1–edge1b–annot-L.png
–Bill
Thanks for that picture, Bill.
Hello
11/08 in my garden
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fcz3DubL4W7pcevB_9VPryVD-8RowyRT7a5YhwmgiMY=w1200-h894-no
cheaper than Rosetta 🙂
Dear Gérard, thanks for sharing your image!
In case you are not a member yet, I would like to point you to the netweork of amateur astronomers that are collecting numerous images of the comet from Earth.
You can read more about it here: https://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/08/07/amateur-astronomers-keeping-an-eye-on-the-comet/
Best wishes
Thank you a lot 🙂
Amazing!
Great picture.
Could you give us some technical details, telescope, exposure etc? Any filters used?
And do you live in a nice dark place?
Very good astrophotos of the comet.
Gerard’s FB page is
https://www.facebook.com/gerard.arlic
and I have no idea where ” Gemeaux Colon Tigre Observatory” is..
–Bill
“Coton Tige” is a nickname given by the French amateur astronomers, because my hair is white as cotton swabs 😀
a new picture on the morning
https://ciel.gg.blog.free.fr/public/67p/67p_18_8_anim.gif