The 3 Months Before Rosetta's Comet Landing

Jagged cliffs and prominent boulders are visible in this image taken by OSIRIS, Rosetta's scientific imaging system, on Sept. 5 from a distance of 62 kilometers from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.



The left part of the image shows a side view of the comet's 'body,' while the right is the back of its 'head'.



One pixel corresponds to 1.1 meters.



Read more:

Rosetta Space Probe to Land on Comet Discovered by Soviet Scientists

Using the CIVA camera on Rosetta's Philae lander, the spacecraft have snapped a 'selfie' at the Comet.



The image was taken on Sept. 7 from a distance of about 50 km from the comet, and captures the side of the Rosetta spacecraft and one of Rosetta's 14 meter-long solar wings, with 67P/C-G in the background.



Two images with different exposure times were combined to bring out the faint details in this very high contrast situation.

Single frame (and cropped) NAVCAM image of the Comet on Sept. 21, 2014.

Four-image montage comprising images taken by Rosetta's navigation camera on Oct. 18 from a distance of 9.8 km from the center of the Comet (about 7.8 km from the surface).



The image scale is 66.5 cm/pixel, so each 1024 x 1024 pixel frame making up the montage is about 680 meters across.

At the moment of touchdown on the Comet, landing gear will absorb the forces of landing while ice screws in each of the probe's feet and a harpoon system will lock Philae to the surface.



At the same time, a thruster on top of the lander will push it down to counteract the impulse of the harpoon imparted in the opposite direction.

Rosetta mission poster showing the deployment of the Philae lander to the Comet.

Acknowledgment: The image of the comet was taken with the navigation camera on? Rosetta? (ESA/Rosetta/NavCam).

This scene features the boulder named Cheops, the largest and brightest boulder towards the top left of the image. It measures about 45 meters across and 25 meters high. Cheops and the surrounding cluster of boulders reminded scientists of the famous pyramids at Giza near Cairo in Egypt, and so it was named for the largest of those pyramids, the Great Pyramid, which was built as a tomb for the pharaoh Cheops around 2550 BC.



Another large boulder lies towards the bottom of this frame and is surrounded by many smaller boulders that seem to be appearing from beneath the smooth, dusty material that dominates this scene. The smooth region extends to the top right of this frame, where rougher terrain appears to be exposed beneath it.? 

Artist impression showing Philae separating from Rosetta and descending to the surface of the Comet.

The Philae lander has separated from ESA's Rosetta orbiter, and is now on its way to becoming the first spacecraft to touch down on a comet. Separation was confirmed at ESA's Space Operation Center, or ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany at 09:03 GMT, or 10:03 CET.



It takes the radio signals from the transmitter on Rosetta 28 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth, so separation actually occurred in space at 08:35 GMT / 09:35 CET.