European spacecraft snaps selfie with comet in background
Spacecraft 鈥渟elfies鈥� are always a treat and this one is doubly awesome: taken by the Philae lander piggybacked onto ESA鈥檚 Rosetta, it shows one of the spacecraft鈥檚 14-meter-long (46-foot) solar arrays glinting with reflected sunlight while off in the distance is the double-lobed nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko!
Rosetta has been circling the comet for over a month now and returning some truly amazing images, but leave it to little Philae to put it all into perspective. Such a show-stealer! (Not that we mind, of course.)
The image above was acquired with Philae鈥檚 CIVA聽(Comet nucleus Infrared and Visible Analyzer) instrument on Sept. 7, 2014, from a distance of 50 km (31 miles) from Comet 67P/C-G. It鈥檚 actually a composite of two separate images made with different exposures adjusted for the lighting disparities between the spacecraft and comet.
The Philae (say 鈥淔EE-lay鈥�) lander itself weighs 100 kg (220 lbs) and is about a meter wide and 80 cm high (3.2 x 2.6 feet). The CIVA instrument, one of ten installed on the lander,聽is composed of seven miniature cameras that will take panoramic pictures of 67P鈥檚 surface and reconstruct its structure in 3D, as well as a microscope and a near-infrared imager to study its composition, texture, and reflectivity.聽()
This is the second image from Philae this year to feature part of the Rosetta spacecraft (but the first to show the comet); the previous one was聽
Back in 2007 Philae took a shot that showed聽Rosetta鈥檚 solar panel and Mars;聽
Currently Rosetta is being transitioned to its Global Mapping Phase (GMP). This is an incredibly intensive process that will determine how close the spacecraft will be able to get聽to the surface of the comet as聽engineers search for the best landing area to which to deploy Philae in聽November.
Learn more about the Rosetta mission and Comet 67P/C-G聽.
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is a graphic designer in Rhode Island. Jason writes about space exploration on his blog , Discovery News, and Universe Today.
