Spacecraft snaps amazing selfie as it prepares to land on comet
So this spacecraft 鈥� taking this picture 鈥� is going to land on the surface of THAT comet. Doesn鈥檛 this give you a pit in your stomach? This is a selfie taken from the Philae spacecraft that, riding piggyback, captured the side of the Rosetta spacecraft orbiting 聽Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
The image is so close-up 鈥� just 9.9 miles (16 kilometers) from 67P鈥檚 surface 鈥� that mission planners can even spot Landing Site J on the comet鈥檚 smaller lobe.
鈥淭wo images, one with a short exposure time, one with a longer one, were combined to capture the whole dynamic range of the scene, from the bright parts of the solar arrays to the dark comet and the dark insulation cladding the Rosetta spacecraft,鈥� the European Space Agency stated.
It鈥檚 quite the zoom-in after the聽, which was taken from 31 miles (50 kilometers) away. The spacecraft is expected to make the first touchdown ever on a comet next month. Rosetta, meanwhile, will keep following 67P as it gets closest to the sun in 2015, between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
Tomorrow (Oct. 15), mission managers will announce if Site J is go or no go for a landing. More information is coming from Rosetta鈥檚 examination of the site from its.
厂辞耻谤肠别:听
is the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter@howellspace聽or contact her at聽.
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