The spacecraft is covered with dark thermal insulation to retain its warmth while venturing into the coldness of the outer solar system, beyond Mars orbit.
Image Credit: ESA
Comets are among the most beautiful and least understood nomads of the night sky.
To date, half a dozen of these heavenly bodies have been visited by spacecraft in an attempt to unlock their secrets.
All these missions have had one thing in common: the high-speed flyby. Like two ships passing in the night (or one ship and one icy dirtball), they screamed past each other at hyper velocity, providing valuable insight, but fleeting glimpses, into the life of a comet.
Rosetta will do more than this and hopefully, further expand our knowledge of these intriguing objects.
NASA is participating in the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, whose goal is to observe one such space-bound icy dirt ball from up close, for an extended period i.e. several months. The spacecraft, festooned with 25 instruments between its lander and orbiter (including three from NASA), is programmed to "wake up" from hibernation on Jan. 20 2014.
After a check-out period, it will monitor comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it makes its nosedive into, and then climb out of, the inner solar system.
Over 16 months, during which time, comet 67P is expected to transform from a small, frozen world into a roiling mass of ice and dust, complete with surface eruptions, mini-earthquakes, basketball-sized, fluffy ice particles and spewing jets of carbon dioxide and cyanide.
 |
| Claudia Alexander |
"To have an extended presence in the neighbourhood of a comet as it goes through so many changes should change our perspective on the nature and timeline of a comet."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment