rosetta

This Video Was Made from 400,000 Photos of Comet 67p Taken by Rosetta

From 2014 to 2016, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft followed the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67p) around space: collecting scientific data, sending a probe to its surface, and capturing some 400,000 photographs of the comet. This cinematic video was made from those photos.

Rosetta Sent a Surprise Close-Up Photo of the Comet it Crashed On

On September 30th, 2016, the European Space Agency ended the Rosetta space probe's mission by crashing it onto the comet that it had been orbiting for two years. It's been over a year now, but scientists just discovered that Rosetta had sent a surprise final close-up photo of the comet's surface just before impact.

Rosetta Beams Down the First True Color Image of Comet 67P, and No It’s Not Gray

Given Comet 67P is, after all, a rock, and given that gray rocks are not uncommon, you would be forgiven for thinking that the photos of the comet that we've seen thus far were in color. That, however, is not the case. What you're seeing above is actually the first true color image of Comet 67P taken by the ESA's Rosetta spacecraft.

This is the First Photo Ever Taken from the Surface of a Comet

Human kind did something incredible yesterday: we landed something on the surface of a comet. After a 10 year journey to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, Rosetta released its lander Philae, which arrived on the comet's surface, bounced around a bit because of a malfunction, and then sent back the very first photo from the surface of a comet.

This Colorized Photo of Comet 67P Shows Its Detailed Landscape from 38 Miles Above the Surface

On September 5th of this year, the OSIRIS imaging system aboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Orbiter snapped one of the closest looks at a comet that we’ve ever seen. Roughly 38.5 miles from the surface of Comet 67P, the photograph captured an incredible amount of detail, even showing the boulders on the surface of the comet.

After the original black and white image was published though, Flickr user 2di7 & titanio44 decided to bring the image to life even more by using obtainable information about Comet 67P to colorize it to the best of his or her ability. You can see the resulting image above.