This GIF Shows the Surface of a Comet - and It's Breathtaking
- The first spacecraft to orbit a comet.
- The first spacecraft to fly alongside a comet as it entered the inner solar system.
- The first spacecraft to examine a frozen comet being warmed by the sun.
- The first mission to send a robotic lander to a comet's nucleus.
- The first images of a comet's surface.
It's been four years now since the Rosetta spacecraft zoomed into space and rendezvoused with a comet.
At that point, the craft took the first photos of a comet's surface, which turned out to be quite breathtaking, as you can see below.
ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Rosetta mission, which was spearheaded by the European Space Agency, accomplished many historic firsts:
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ESA/Rosetta/NavCam, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Rosetta also took some stunning shots as it approached the comet, as shown above.
This image was taken in May 2015 using Rosett's navigation camera. It was taken from a distance of just under 140 kilometers from the comet's core.
But now, Twitter user @landru79 has put the icing on the cake by putting multiple images together to create a 1-second video that shows what it would be like to walk on the surface of the comet.
As you can see below, the results are incredible.
#ROSETTA ? OSIRIS #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO new albums ?--ROSETTA EXTENSION 2 MTP030-- Miércoles 1 Junio 2016 all filters stacked pic.twitter.com/Bf173Z5g79
— landru79 (@landru79) April 23, 2018
If you ask me, this almost looks like an old-time black and white silent movie from back in the day.
It's a little spooky, too, if I do say so myself.
Nevertheless, it's an impressive view of something that you and I will never get to see in real life!
Via PetaPixel