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Earth's Interplanetary Dust Traced to Comets by Rosetta Probe

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The interplanetary dust particles that fall to Earth from outer space apparently come from comets, according to the latest findings from Europe's comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft. This discovery could shed light on the origins of Earth and the rest of the solar system.

In August, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft became the first probe ever to orbit a comet; in November, it became the first to land a probe on a comet. Rosetta and its target, Comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko, are currently about 318 million miles (513 million kilometers) from Earth.

In general, comets consist of mixtures of ice and dust. "You can think of them either as dirty snowballs or icy dirtballs," said lead study author Rita Schulz, a space scientist at the European Space Agency in Noordwijk in the Netherlands. [See amazing comet images from Rosetta]

As the orbits of comets bring them near the sun, their ice sublimates, or turns directly from solid to gas. The closer the comets get, the more gas they give off, and the more dust gets freed from the ice, as well.

As the orbits of comets bring them away from the sun, the flow of gas from the objects slows down. This eventually means any dust lifted up to a comet's surface by gas leaks gets trapped on the comet instead of escaping. "There is eventually not enough gas pressure for the dust particles to get away, stranding them on the comet's surface, and they build up a dusty layer called a mantle," Schulz said.

Rosetta has been collecting and analyzing grains of dust flying off Comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko using the craft's COSIMA instrument. The comet takes about 6.5 years to complete an orbit, and in the fours years of that orbit the icy body spent away from the sun, it built up a mantle.

Now the scientists find that comets such as 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko "are the apparent origin of interplanetary dust particles," Schulz told Space.com. Interplanetary dust continually rains down on Earth and other solar system bodies.

Rosetta began collecting grains of dust from the comet about 3 astronomical units (AU) away from the sun, or about three times Earth's average distance from the sun. When the comet got between 2.5 and 2.7 AU from the sun, its dust production doubled, suggesting that this was when the object shed its mantle.

Most of the grains collected so far are more than 50 microns across. (In comparison, the average human hair is about 100 microns wide.)

These grains are fluffy, being more than 50 percent hollow. Many shattered when collected, suggesting they are conglomerates of smaller grains, likely about the same size as interplanetary dust particles.

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Earth's Interplanetary Dust Traced to Comets by Rosetta Probe

Rosetta reveals comet secrets

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A generation ago, Astronomers thought of comets as simple things huge dirty snowballs of rock and ice with a few organic chemicals thrown in. But after six months orbiting comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko, the unmanned Rosetta probe has shown them to be far more complex and active than previously thought.

To mark a special issue of Science, the European Space Agency (ESA) has released some preliminary findings from the data sent back by seven of the 11 instruments on the Rosetta comet orbiter. Far from being a static homogeneous collection of ice and stone, 67P shows a varied collection of terrains and processes that change their behavior as the comet moves closer to the Sun.

The most striking things about 67P is the shape it presented as Rosetta approached. Instead of a compact ball or an irregular cylinder, the comet turned out to be a "rubber duck" with a small lobe measuring 2.6 x 2.3 x 1.8 km (1.6 x 1.4 x 1.1 mi) and the larger one 4.1 x 3.3 x 1.8 km (2.5 x 2.0 x 1.1 mi). Linking them is a narrow neck marked by a 500 m (1.640 ft) crack running parallel to it. According to ESA, similar cracks on 67P are due to stresses caused by the comet heating and cooling, though whether the larger crack has a similar origin or is due to stress that may one day split the comet has yet to be determined.

This neck and its crack ties in with another mystery the origin of the comet. The composition of the two lobes are identical, but question remains about whether the neck is the result of erosion or the fusion of two very similar comets sharing a similar origin.

Another curious fact about the comet is that it's a lot spongier than expected. At 10 billion tonnes (11 billion tons), 67P may not seem very light, but its volume is 21.4 km3 (5.1 mi3), which works out to a density of 470 kg/m3. This means it's 70 to 80 percent porous with an internal structure of ice dust and small voids.

The 70 percent of comet's surface that's been mapped so far shows remarkable variety, with 19 regions named after Egyptian deities and showing very different terrains. Some are covered with dust expelled from the interior as ice boils away in jets and falls back in dune-like ripples. Other areas are made up of brittle materials, and then there are large depressions, and smooth areas. A particularly curious feature are the "goosebumps" found on very steep cliff faces, the origin of which is still unknown.

But it wasn't just the comet itself that Rosetta was revealing. The famous coma surrounding comets is well known, but Rosetta demonstrated that there's more enveloping 67P. So far, instruments have shown that large amounts of dust as gas is being blown out of the comet to the point where whenever the it circles away from the Sun it ends up with a temporary shroud of dust orbiting it. In addition, there's more than just sublimated water jetting out, there's also carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

One aspect of all this outgassing is that 67P is not only developing an atmosphere, but as the solar wind the Suns UV radiation strikes the gas atoms and ionizes them, a magnetosphere as well. ESA says that this effect will become more pronounced as 67P draws closer to the Sun.

"Rosetta is essentially living with the comet as it moves towards the Sun along its orbit, learning how its behavior changes on a daily basis and, over longer timescales, how its activity increases, how its surface may evolve, and how it interacts with the solar wind," says Matt Taylor, ESAs Rosetta project scientist. "We have already learned a lot in the few months we have been alongside the comet, but as more and more data are collected and analysed from this close study of the comet we hope to answer many key questions about its origin and evolution."

Source: ESA

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Rosetta reveals comet secrets

Rock Around the Clock (In the Style of Bill Haley & His Comets) (Karaoke Version) – Video

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Rock Around the Clock (In the Style of Bill Haley His Comets) (Karaoke Version)
Rock Around the Clock (In the Style of Bill Haley His Comets) [Karaoke Version] Turnaround Karaoke Crew 2013 Ameritz Music Ltd Released on: 2013-11-22 Au...

By: Various Artists - Topic

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Rock Around the Clock (In the Style of Bill Haley & His Comets) (Karaoke Version) - Video

Comets Hog-Tied 3-0 by Rockford

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January 25, 2015 - American Hockey League (AHL) Utica Comets For the first time since January of last year, the Utica Comets have lost four games in a row after Saturday night's 3-0 loss to the Rockford IceHogs at the BMO Harris Bank Center. The Comets have now forfeited their second place Western Conference standing to the Chicago Blackhawks American Hockey League affiliate.

Rockford's goaltender Scott Darling shutout the Comets by stopping all of the 31 shots they took on him Saturday evening.

After being outworked and outshot for the majority of the first stanza, the Comets gave up the first goal of the game as the period winded down. Following a slashing call on Brendan Gaunce, the IceHogs took advantage of their first power play of the night. After Ryan Hartman and Phillip Danault set up in the offensive zone, Klas Dahlbeck ended up with the puck at the left point. Dahlbeck took the shot blind but due to a screen in front of the net from both Bobby Sanguinetti and Pierre-C"dric Labrie, the puck snuck past Comets goaltender Jacob Markstrom to give the IceHogs the 1-0 lead at 17:44.

It took a little time, but the IceHogs found another halfway through the second period, which extended their lead to two. Following a 2-on-1 advantage for Rockford, Garret Ross received a pass from Adam Clendening as he snuck past the lone defenseman. Once he was on his own with Markstrom, Ross lifted the puck from the center slot and buried it past the glove hand to make it 2-0. Dennis Rasmussen was credited with the secondary assist.

The IceHogs found their third and final goal of the night just as the third had begun at 3:52. Labrie was left in control of the puck as he streaked down the left wing. With a clear pass to the slot, Labrie opted out and took a wrister to the right of Markstrom. The puck ended up cruising right past the blocker side to finalize the game 3-0. Clendening and Viktor Svedberg both tallied assist on the play.

Tonight's loss marks the fifth time the Comets have been shutout this season.

After Saturday night's loss, the Comets will return to their hometown, Utica N.Y. but not because they have a game of their own to attend to. The AHL All-Star Classic is this weekend and it's being held at The Utica Memorial Auditorium this Sunday and Monday. Once the All-Star weekend is finished, the Comets will be preparing for the arrival of the Toronto Marlies which will take place at The AUD as well on Friday Jan. 3o at 7 p.m.

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Comets Hog-Tied 3-0 by Rockford

Comets Visit BMO Tonight in Clash of West's Best

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January 24, 2015 - American Hockey League (AHL) Rockford IceHogs Rockford, Ill. - The stage is set for what has become one of the most highly-anticipated games of the season. The American Hockey League's Rockford IceHogs (24-13-4-2) welcome the Utica Comets (24-10-5-1) to the BMO Harris Bank Center on Saturday night, in a meeting of two of the league's top teams.

In addition to the game, Rockford celebrating its sixth-annual Pink At The Rink Night, presented by Swedish American Hospital. The ice surface at the BMO will be pink, as will the specialty jerseys the IceHogs will wear - jerseys that will be available through a blind silent auction in section 122 throughout the night. All proceeds benefit the Mary Kay and Swedish American Foundations.

Additionally, the first 2,500 fans will receive a free foam LED stick, courtesy of Swedish American Hospital.

Fans can catch Saturday's contest, which is sold-out, by tuning into 23.2 Antenna TV or logging on to AHLLive.com. Television coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. with the IceHogs Warm Up pregame show.

Rockford and Utica converge while occupying two of the top three positions in the Western Conference standings. The Midwest Division-leading IceHogs and the North-pacing Comets are tied for second-best spot in the conference with 54 points. The clubs meet at the BMO for the first of only two times this season, with the finale taking place in Central New York in late March.

The IceHogs head into the Western showdown after surviving a scare in their last outing, provided by John Curry and the Iowa Wild. Rockford eked out a 1-0 victory in Des Moines, a margin that could have been wider if it wasn't for a 41-save performance from the Iowa goaltender. Curry and IceHogs netminder Michael Leighton kept the game scoreless until Matt Carey delivered the game-winning goal with less than seven minutes left in regulation.

With his 23-save effort Leighton picked up his fourth shutout of the season and the 40th of his AHL career. The 13-year professional now is just one shutout shy of tying Gil Mayer (1949-63) for second place on the league's all-time shutout list.

The resurgent Rockford club has been playing well as of late, taking points in seven of their last nine contests. However, their lead atop the Midwest has dwindled to just a single point, thanks to the second-place Milwaukee Admirals' current nine-game winning streak.

For the Comets, the BMO is the final stop in what has proven to be a difficult week-long swing through the Midwest. After starting with a 3-2 overtime loss in Milwaukee on Wednesday, Utica was handed a 5-1 loss last night in Michigan by the Grand Rapids Griffins. The Comets head into Rockford ready to end a three-game winless streak, their longest of the campaign.

In a similar formula as the IceHogs, the Vancouver Canucks affiliate has capitalized on balanced scoring and outstanding goaltending to make their home near the top of the Western Conference since the season began. 15 different skaters have tallied over 10 points for the Comets, including AHL All-Stars Cal O'Reilly (4g-26a) and Bobby Sanguinetti (8g-12a).

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Comets Visit BMO Tonight in Clash of West's Best

Comets Remain Undefeated and Clinch a Playoff Berth

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January 23, 2015 - Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) Missouri Comets SALTILLO, Mexico "" Saltillo Rancho Seco (1-11) played one of their best games this season. However, their efforts were not enough to upset the undefeated Missouri Comets (14-0) who left the Deportivo RSS with a 14-8 victory.

Team and league leader Leo Gibson was named Borden Man of the Match notching five goals, four of them scored in the first quarter.

With this victory, head coach Vlatko Andonovski's team have clinched a playoff berth in the inaugural season of the Major Arena Soccer League and could wrap the Central Division championship with one more win or a Chicago Mustangs loss.

Only seven minutes into the match, the Comets were already up 6-0. Gibson scored the first tally of the evening at the 1:09 mark assisted by John Sosa before Robert Palmer assisted by Bryan Perez gave the away team a 2-0 lead.

In a two-minute span, Gibson added three more goals to his name before Max Touloute found the back of the net defeating goalkeeper Alejandro Garza.

Moments later, Saltillo scored their first goal of the night courtesy of Iran Rodriguez but six seconds before the end of the first stanza, team captain Vahid Assadpour gave the Comets a 7-1 lead.

Saltillo came out stronger to the field on the second quarter and scored three consecutive goals to shorten the lead to a three-goal match when Jesus Nava, Victor Baez and Aaron Chavez each found the back of Danny Waltman's goal but Alain Matingou and Andre Braithwaite scored to take a 9-4 lead to the locker rooms.

Once again, Rancho Seco notched three straight tallies early in the third quarter scored by Rafael Raygoza Medrano, Miguel Cedillo and Jonathan Gutierrez making it 9-7 before the Comets answered back with goals from Perez, Assadpour and Sosa.

With a 12-7 lead, the Comets once again allowed a goal to start the fourth quarter when Manuel Valentin dribbled through the defense and scored unassisted before Josh Gardner scored on a powerplay followed by Gibson's fifth goal to end the match with a final score of 14-8.

Next up, the Comets will visit the state-of-the-art Arena Monterrey to face the Southern Division powerhouse Monterrey Flash at 5:05 p.m. CT before returning to the Independence Events Center on January 30 when they host Chicago.

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Comets Remain Undefeated and Clinch a Playoff Berth

Ask the Experts: How Do Amateur Astronomers Discover Comets?

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Prolific comet hunter Terry Lovejoy shares his secrets

Australian IT specialist Terry Lovejoy moonlights as an amateur astronomer with five comet discoveries under his belt. His latest find, Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy), is currently approaching the sun, making it visible for the next few days to naked-eye observers in the Northern Hemisphere with clear skies in the early evening. The comet has gained social media fame, with eager stargazers around the world seeking it out. The attention has surprised Lovejoy, whose earlier discoveries didnt get near as much attention. This time its been quite insane, he says. In the last week and a half Ive had at least a thousand Facebook friend requests. Lovejoy found his first comet in 2007. His third discovery, made in 2011, was distinctive because it was what is known as a Kreutz sungrazera comet that literally grazes the atmosphere of the sun. That object, called Comet C/2011 W3, flew through the suns corona, passing within 140,000 kilometers of the solar surface, and emerged damaged but still intact. Scientific American spoke to Lovejoy about his comet-hunting exploits and his advice for those who would like to follow in his path. [An edited transcript of the interview follows.] How long does it take you to find a new comet? I probably get one every two years. It doesnt sound like a lot but it is quite tough. Im trying to improve those odds with equipment upgrades and software changes. Most comets are discovered by the professional surveys. We amateurs tend to find stuff in areas near the sun where the surveys dont look. How do you do it? The computer and the telescope do most of the work. I have a shed just on the side of the house here; it has a roll-off roof that I can just push off. Then I connect the telescope to the computer and I run an automated sequence to image parts of the sky. It takes three images of the same part of the sky, but theyre separated by about 10 minutes. If theres a comet or any moving object youll see it move between those exposures. I have software that basically trolls through those images and looks for objects that are moving. What I do by eye is I look at what its found to verify if its real or not. Thats how Ive done the last two. Before that I looked at the whole image manually; it took a long time. A couple years ago I had to start automating it. Now it takes five minutes to do what used to take two to three hours. A few people had pictured me being out there all night looking through a telescope. Thats very old schoolit doesnt happen. I have a family, Ive got two kids, my wife. I have to think about them. How often does the software flag photos that you need to check by eye? During any one nights session, maybe 100 or so [get flagged]. But because theyre just little preview windows I can flip through them very quickly. You also have real objects, like asteroids and other comets, so I have to eliminate those. There are some good Web sites as well where you can put in a position and you can see any known objects in that area. So your software finds 100 possible objects every night but you had to go a year or two before one turned out to be real? Thats right. Its certainly very obsessive when you put it like that. For the last two comets I went though about 70,000 images to find each comet. Theres a lot of time, even now, between comets. For me its the challenge of working on the telescope, working on the software to get it more efficientthats the satisfaction I get out of it. I think the actual discovery is probably not as exciting now as it was for the first one. Tell me about this latest discovery. How long was it before you knew it was a new comet for sure? It was probably about a day before I knew. I had made contact with a couple people and said, I think I found something; Im not 100 percent sure. I found it in the morning, and I had confirmation from a Facebook friend in the evening when I was on the way home on the train. At that point I knew we had a comet. But you need to get enough observations of the comet and its positions in the sky to calculate an orbital trajectory. Generally you need about two to three days of those observations. Once you have found the orbit you can compare it to any historic objects that may have been here in the past and are returning. Then you can confirm its a new comet. So your new comet has not been to the inner solar system before? Apparently 13,000 years ago it did [according to orbital calculations]but not in recent human history. It will return in 8,000 years. Its kind of cool to think about that. How did you get into amateur astronomy? I grew up in a place called Cumnock, in central New South Wales. Because it was so far away from any major cities we had very dark skies, and I think it was there where I became interested. My father got woken up one morning for work and it was pitch black, like it normally is when theres no moon, and he was walking outside and saw this giant feather in the skythats how he described it. Then it took a few moments and he thought, Thats a comet. That turned out to be a Kreutz sungrazing comet, so its fitting that I found a comet in 2011 that was [also a Kreutz sungrazer]. Thats how it all really began. And when did you become a more serious comet hunter? Around 2004 I kind of fell into that. I was following a lot of the known comets as well as looking at other objects. But one thing I noticed is that being in the Southern Hemisphere, a lot of comets were not being found. All of the people looking for comets appeared to be in the Northern Hemisphere. I thought, Ive probably got an opportunity here to go and find some comets. I dont think Ive really ever had that drive to get up at all hours of the night and stare through an eyepieceto me that wasnt fun. But when digital cameras and decent quality CCD cameras started to appear I thought I could automate a system and then I could live a normal life. Between your full-time job and your astronomical activities, do you get enough sleep? No, not really. Well, believe it or not, I usually get eight hours of sleep but sometimes its interrupted. What advice do you have for people who would like to get into comet hunting? Dont be too serious about it. Often people go out and buy all the best equipment and then realize its not for them, or they burn out and get overwhelmed by it. My advice is that people start fairly simple and not spend lots of money. Just go and buy some binoculars or a small Dobsonian telescope and then develop your own interest that way. Some people go and buy too large a telescope. Theres not much point if you cant move it or get it into your car. There are also people who say youre not an amateur astronomer unless youre doing serious observations and I think thats wrong as well. Youre doing this for enjoyment. The serious stuff can come later.

2015 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc.

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Ask the Experts: How Do Amateur Astronomers Discover Comets?

Comets coach Green isnt measuring Shinkaruks progress on the stat sheet

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It would be easy to question Hunter Shinakaruks first half-season of pro hockey by pointing to his six goals in 38 games and wondering what happened to the sniper who scored 86 in two WHL seasons before the Canucks made him a first-round pick.

Easy, and also very unfair.

Shinkaruk, who turned 20 in October, missed most of last season with hip labrum surgery, but, more significantly, hes faced with the large task of making the transition from junior hockey to a very different AHL game against bigger, stronger and more mature players.

Much like another Canucks first-rounder, Nicklas Jensen, did last season, Shinkaruk is working his way through it with the Utica Comets. The surgically repaired hip feels great but the scoresheet isnt always flattering.

My stats are not where Id like them to be but I really didnt play last year, said Shinkaruk, a fleet winger who was drafted 24th overall by the Canucks in 2013. Its been an adjustment. When you are 18 or 19 and the captain of your junior team, you play big minutes. Its not like that here. Its a different game. Its more closed down and theres not as much room out there. I came from junior, where theres an odd-man rush every second shift.

Comets head coach Travis Green likes what hes seen from Shinkaruk, though the steps forward have been incremental.

I really like the way hes playing, hes progressing, said Green. A lot of young guys, they try to base how theyre playing on goals and assists. But I think Hunter has done a good job in not getting caught up in that. It is hard for a guy whos been a natural scorer and has scored goals all his life. Even in the last five or 10 games, hes taken a step. Im hoping itll translate into some more points, just for him personally so he gets rewarded. I have noticed Im playing him more, and thats just him getting used to the league.

Green said one of the common challenges of adjusting to the AHL from junior and one that isnt lost on Shinkaruk is dealing with the physical one-on-one play. Though Shinkaruk put on some upper body muscle in the gym while recuperating from hip surgery last year, he still needs to get stronger.

The AHL level has a lot more one-on-one puck battles in all areas of the rink, said Green. Its not as clean a game (as the NHL). For a young guy that can be harder. Hes learning now, where hes coming out of those battles with the puck.

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Comets coach Green isnt measuring Shinkaruks progress on the stat sheet

Comets eager for state duals

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The wait is almost over for the Mason High School wrestling team.

After making a run to the state tournament in the Ohio High School Athletic Association state duals last year, the Comets are ready for this years event, which begins Jan. 28.

Our kids are extremely excited, Mason coach Craig Murnan said. They have been focused on it and training for it all year. I think the experience of last year is something they want to build on. It is a true definition of a team.

For the first time, the road to St. John Arena runs through Masons gym.

The Comets dropped the first ever regional final at Centerville in 2013 before knocking the Elks out in the same round last year 37-18 to advance to state.

Mason was supposed to open the tournament Wednesday as the top seed against Middletown, but the Middies have withdrawn from the tournament. Centerville enters as the fifth seed and will battle Lebanon for the right to face Mason for a spot in the regional semis.

We are definitely in a good spot because we get to host it this year, Murnan said. Hopefully we will have two weeks of hosting.

Mason would face second-seed Fairfield or third-seed Springboro in the regional semis before facing the winner of region 7-B to go back to state.

We are going to have our work cut out for us, Murnan said. Fairfield is always good with their tradition and Springboro has a nice team. It seems Fairfield has more energy with Jason (Laflin) taking over. It is going to be a fun time.

And, it will be the first look teams in Cincinnati truly get at the Comets.

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Comets eager for state duals

5-1 Loss Extends Comets Losing Streak to Three

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January 23, 2015 - American Hockey League (AHL) Utica Comets For the first time this season the Utica Comets have a losing streak. The Grand Rapids 5-1 victory over the Comets sent Utica to their third straight loss.

Dustin Jeffrey (1-0-1) found the Comets only goal of the game as the team struggled to stay out of the penalty box all night long. Pat Nagle, the Griffins goaltending prospect from the Eastern Coast Hockey League kept the Comets on a leash all night long by stopping 28 of the 29 shots the Comets released on him. Comets goaltender, Joacim Eriksson saw a plethora of shots from the Griffins and managed to stop all but three of the 35 he faced.

A stretch pass is what started it all for the Griffins just before the half-way mark in the first period. Alexey Marchenko fed the puck to Mark Zengerle from one blue line to the next and as Zengerle skated past the Comets defense he positioned himself in a good spot directly in the center slot. Before the Comets defense could catch up to him, Zengerle released a wrist shot that beat Eriksson glove side for the early 1-0 lead. Anthony Mantha took credit for the secondary assist.

As the teams headed into the second period, Jeffrey decided to integrate some of his chest bumping skills into his bag of hockey tricks. At 8:14, the veteran Comets forward found himself in front of Griffins goaltender Pat Nagle as the puck came flying towards his chest following a shot from Nicklas Jensen. The puck bounced off of Jeffrey's chest and directly into the net to give the Comets even the score up at one. Bobby Sanguinetti also tallied an assist on the play.

Just as the period was winding down, the Griffins found a buzzer beater quite literally within the last second of the period. In the midst of a scramble in front of the Comets net, Mitch Callahan popped the puck through Eriksson's legs for the 2-1 lead that just barley beat the clock. Teemu Pulkkinen and Nathan Paetsch both received assists on their second goal of the game.

Even though the Comets rank as the number one penalty killing team on the road, they ended up faltering on their fifth penalty kill of the night after a shot from Scott Czarnowczan. Following the wristshot from Czarnowczan, Eriksson tracked it down with his glove-hand but immediately lost control of the puck. As it dropped to the wayside, Marek Tvrdon guided it into the net behind Eriksson for the power-play goal and the 3-1 lead. Ryan Sproul also made an appearance on the scorers sheet for the secondary assist.

As the third winded down, Eriksson was pulled away from his duties with five minutes left in regulation to give the Comets the extra-attacker for the come-back attempt. What resulted was two empty-net goals both from Tomas Nosek. The first was a short-handed goal and went unassisted at 15:55 and his second came at 19:01 with assists from both Pulkkinen and Jeff Hoggan.

The Comets only have one more game to cross off of their list before the American Hockey League's All-Star break. The Rockford IceHogs will host the Utica hockey club tomorrow night for an 8 p.m. EST match-up at the BMO Harris Bank center for their first meeting of the season.

Three Stars: 1. GR Pat Nagle (W, 28 Saves) 2. GR Mitch Callahan (Goal) 3. GR Mark Zengerle (Goal)

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5-1 Loss Extends Comets Losing Streak to Three

Rosetta mission findings show a comet with cliffs, basins, 'goose bumps'

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The early results from the Rosetta mission are in, and they reveal that comets are much more complicated than anyone realized.

In a flurry of papers published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers provide the first data-driven snapshot of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko a world of towering cliffs, wide basins, powdery surfaces blacker than coal, and a growing atmosphere that will soon be strong enough to deflect the solar wind.

The picture is starting to come together, said Paul Weissman of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an interdisciplinary scientist on the European Space Agency-led mission.

A few other spacecraft have flown past comets, but Rosetta is the first to travel alongside one as it makes its way to perihelion, the moment when it is closest to the sun. Comet 67P will reach that milestone in the middle of August.

When the suite of instruments aboard Rosetta first started taking measurements of 67P, the dumbbell-shaped comet was more than 325 million miles from the sun. At that distance, on the other side of the asteroid belt, it was too faint to see from ground-based telescopes.

We don't have a lot of previous observations of comets in that part of the solar system," Weissman said. We are exploring unknown territory.

Most of the findings reported in Science are based on data collected between April and September, when Rosetta was still sailing toward 67P, and months before a lander carried by Rosetta, known as Philae, maneuvered to a nail-biting arrival upon the comets surface.

Each of the seven Science papers describes a different aspect of the comet, including observations of the size and density of the dust in its coma and the composition of the organic material on its surface.

One of the papers reveals that jets of gas streaming off the comet are coming primarily from the neck region.

In another report, researchers identified 19 distinct geographical areas on 67P that have been named for Egyptian deities, including Ma'at, Imhotep, Aten and Ash.

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Rosetta mission findings show a comet with cliffs, basins, 'goose bumps'

Rosetta's up-close views of comet: stunning, but puzzling (+video)

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Nearly 11 years after launch and five months into its cosmic road trip with a comet, the European Space Agency's Rosetta orbiter is providing stunning views and raising puzzling questions about its traveling companion: comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The comet, 67P for short, sports a rubber-duck-shaped nucleus with goosebumps. It's a Baby Huey, sporting a mass of 10 billion metric tons. It displays more variety in the amount and relative abundance of the gases it sheds than researchers expected. And it sports an array of dust and chunks of debris up to six feet across that orbit the nucleus, like bees unwilling to leave the hive's neighborhood.

These are among the observations the Rosetta science team is unveiling in Friday's issue of the journal Science. Rosetta arrived at the comet last August. The observations researchers have described were gathered during the first two months Rosetta and 67P became co-travelers.

The results so far are "tremendous; they are completely changing what we know about comets," says Dennis Bodewits, a researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park,who focuses on behavior and evolution of comets. "Being able to orbit a comet while it is flying close to the sun, we can see things and really figure out how comets work" at an unprecedented level of detail.

Comets, along with asteroids, represent the construction rubble left over from the solar system's planet-building stage some 4.5 billion years ago. Comets in particular are thought to carry some of the most pristine ingredients the young sun and its extended disk of dust and gas had to offer as raw material for planets. Comets also are known to carry organic compounds and are thought to be one type of vehicle that delivered water and organic chemicals to Earth chemicals that could serve as building blocks for more-complex molecules underpinning organic life.

Comet 67P is providing the most rigorous test yet for ideas about how comets form and evolve as they make their periodic pilgrimages toward the sun and back.

Using Rosetta's OSIRIS cameras one for detailed close-ups of the surface and one for wider views the mission's science team has uncovered an amazing variety of surface features.

On large scales, some portions of the surface appear brittle, with sections hundreds of feet across looking as though they'd collapsed after being undermined. Other regions of the surface appear to be vast rubble piles, while others appear as smooth plains. One region hosts a cliff nearly 3,000 feet tall that rises from the adjoining plain.

Virtually the entire surface is covered in a layer of dark dust. The craft's VIRTIS spectrometer has uncovered an array of molecules with high carbon content in the surface material, but precious little ice. This is unlike other comets similar to 67P members of a class known as Jupiter-family comets with return periods of about 20 years. They get their name from the influence Jupiter's gravity has in shaping their trajectories.

"67P represents a different species in the cometary zoo," writes the VIRTIS team in its contribution to the package of Rosetta results in Science.

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Rosetta's up-close views of comet: stunning, but puzzling (+video)


  1. Comets