Today’s CometWatch entry was taken on 1 June 2015, from a distance of 209 km from the centre of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The image scale is 17.8 m/pixel and the image measures 18.2 km across.
Comet 67P/C-G on 1 June. The image has been processed to highlight the comet’s activity. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
The image has been processed to bring out the details of the comet’s activity, which can be seen all around the sunlit side of the comet.
In this orientation the comet’s small lobe is to the left and the large lobe to the right, with much of the southern hemisphere facing towards the spacecraft.
The outline of the rim of the large depression Hatmehit can be seen at the very far left, while at the far right a hint of Imhotep can just be made out. The flat surface at the top of the large lobe in this orientation is in the Aker/Khepry region.
The rugged terrain that faces us has only become visible in more recent months, having previously been cast in shadow. But even at a distance of over 200 km it is clear that this is a complex region with a variety of surface textures.
The original 1024 x 1024 pixel image is provided below:
Discussion: 6 comments
The right hand side looks amazingly flat in this view – like there used to be another half that got sheared off somehow.
Andyf, its actually the other way round. The smooth part on the right is original crust and the whole of the rugged part facing us has been ripped away by two separate aspects of the same mechanism: head tip and subsequent stretch. Or at least that’s what Marco and I think.
Not so duck like from this angle, more like a koala.
There is a groove running from Hatmehit to the right, and it meets another groove running across all the way to the neck to form a Y-shaped rift structure. This is visible in many pictures now, for example the one in Cometwatch 3 May.
looking at it this way, reminds me of a cut off barnacle… ship’s surface was to the right…
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I see a heart! ❤️ Thanks for sharing this photo on Instagram as well. Keep posting more!