A space probe aiming to become the first to land on a comet has taken images that appear to show its target could actually be two separate lumps of rock and ice, scientists said on Thursday.
The pictures released by the European Space Agency were taken by its Rosetta probe, which is nearing the final stage of its decade-long mission to drop a lander on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
“Some people have already likened the shape to a duck, with a distinct body and head,” the agency said.
Mission scientist Matt Taylor had a different comparison: “a strange-looking potato.”
“It’s certainly an exciting surprise,” Taylor said.
Until now 67P was believed to have a more compact, rounded form. One explanation is that the comet is a so-called contact binary composed of two parts, indicating that 67P either broke apart or fused with another comet at some point. Another is that it is one unit deformed by its passage past Jupiter or the sun, Taylor said.
However, because the pictures were shot when Rosetta was 12,000km from the comet — about the distance between New York and Johannesburg — the unusual shape could also result from a digital processing method that was used to smoothen the image, he said.
“We’re looking forward to the next month when this body comes into closer resolution,” Taylor said, adding that for the time being scientists are not making any changes to the probe’s flight path.
Rosetta is scheduled to come within 100km of the comet on Aug. 6. It will observe the comet for several months before attempting to drop a lander onto its icy surface in November.
67P is about 4km long and orbits the sun every six-and-a-half years.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS