PIA21564: Cliff Collapses on Rosetta's Comet


Cliff Collapses on Rosetta’s Comet

Caption:

Several sites of cliff collapse on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko were identified during Rosetta's mission. The yellow arrows mark the fractures where the detachment occurred. The collapsed sections are about 50 feet (15 meters) long for the left-hand section, and 30 feet (9 meters) for the right-hand section. Additional images taken from greater distances suggest the collapse occurred between May and December 2015.

The images were taken by Rosetta's OSIRIS camera on Dec. 2, 2014 (left), and March 12, 2016 (right), with resolutions of 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) per pixel and 1 foot (0.3 meters) per pixel, respectively.

Background Info:

Rosetta is a European Space Agency mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is provided by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center, Cologne; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen; French National Space Agency, Paris; and the Italian Space Agency, Rome. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the U.S. participation in the Rosetta mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information on the U.S. instruments aboard Rosetta, visit http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov .

More information about Rosetta is available at http://www.esa.int/rosetta .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
System Periodic Comets
Target Type Comet
Mission Rosetta
Instrument Host Rosetta Orbiter Philae Lander
Host Type Orbiter Lander
Instrument Optical, Spectrocopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Infrared
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2017-03-21
Date in Caption 2014-12-02 2016-03-12
Image Credit ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21564
Identifier PIA21564