A Sudden Jet on Comet 67P?
Explanation:
There she blows!
A dramatic demonstration of how short-lived some comet jets can be was documented
in late July by the
robotic Rosetta spacecraft orbiting the nucleus of Comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
The
featured animation
depicts changes in the rotating comet with
three illuminating
stills.
Although the first frame shows nothing unusual, the second frame shows a sudden strong
jet shooting off the
67P's surface only 20 minutes
later, while the third frame -- taken 20 minutes after that -- shows but a slight
remnant of the once-active
jet.
As comets near the Sun, they can produce
long and beautiful tails that stream across the inner
Solar System.
How comet
jets produce these tails is a topic of research -- helped
by images like this.
Another recent
Rosetta measurement indicates that the
water on Earth
could not have come from comets like
67P because of significant differences in impurities.
Comet 67P
spans about four kilometers, orbits the Sun between Earth and Jupiter, and has
been the home for
ESA's Rosetta
spaceship since 2014 August.
Rosetta is
currently scheduled to make a
slow crash
onto Comet 67P's surface in late 2016.
Now Available:
APOD 2016 Wall Calendars
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
