The 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet with which spacecraft Rosetta of the European Space Agency (ESA) intends to land is one of great wonders, following latest images that show the comet is shaped like a rubber ducky, reports the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The comet's images were taken 7,500 miles away by an onboard scientific imaging system called OSIRIS on July 14, verifying that the comet’s body has a strange shape that is apparently unlike other comets previously visited.
"This is unlike any other comet we have ever seen before," Carsten Güttler, OSIRIS project manager from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), says in a statement. "The images faintly remind me of a rubber ducky with a body and a head."
The intriguing comet shape—with a nucleus of clearly two separated parts—remains unclear to them, however.
"At this point we know too little about 67P to allow for more than an educated guess," principal investigator at OSIRIS, Holger Sierks, also says in a statement.
The Rosetta team of the ESA is likewise not diving into quick judgment about its initial discovery.
"Care and caution is needed; don't jump to conclusions," project scientist Dr. Matt Taylor tells the BBC. "We're still too far away at this moment; we're still using interpolated images. So speculate all you want, but we really have to wait until we get there and start doing detailed observations.”
To examine further the shape of the comet, the scientists can interpolate the image data to come up with a smoother shape.
"There is, of course, still uncertainty in these processed, filtered images, and the surface will not be as smooth as it now appears," says Güttler, adding that these can help them gather a first idea.
The scientists are hoping to find more about the mineralogical and physical properties of the comet in the coming months of study and research, as this could assist them in identifying if the head and body of the comet were previously two separate bodies. Also called “Jupiter class,” it takes about 6.45 years for the comet to makes its orbit to the Sun.
JPL says Rosetta spacecraft is a mission conducted by the ESA, together with its member states and with NASA. The spacecraft carries three instruments from NASA in its payload of 21 instruments.
