The interplanetary station Rosetta sent the clearest picture of the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko: the nucleus of the comet was doubled

August 6, the day when the Rosetta interplanetary station entered the orbit of comet Churyumov Gerasimenko, is getting closer. And this means that the station itself is approaching a comet: now the object of research and the spacecraft are no longer divided into millions or hundreds of thousands of kilometers, but only about 9 thousand kilometers.

The other day, Rosetta made the most detailed, at the moment, snapshot of the comet's core, from a distance of about 12 thousand kilometers.
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A bit of movement:



It turned out that the nucleus of the comet has the shape of irregular eight. Such “double” nuclei are not such a rarity, for example, comet 8P / Tuttle has a similar structure.

However, this form of the nucleus of comet Churyumov Gerasimenko makes it an even more interesting object for study. One of the popular theories that attempt to explain the shape of the nucleus is that the “eight” is a consequence of the merging of two comets that “fused” together during the evolution of the solar system billions of years ago. It was then, as another theory says, that planets were formed in a similar way.

And maybe in another way: the single nucleus of a comet acquires a similar shape as a result of the impact of a powerful gravitational field of objects like Jupiter or the Sun. Most likely, once the core of the now unified comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko is still divided into two parts, and we will have two comets, and not one.

In general, the comet is interesting to study, but its shape makes the landing of the Filae probe more complex than planned. Presumably, until August 6, and after this date, scientists have reason to break their heads.

By the way, most recently the most detailed snapshot of the comet's nucleus made by the device looked like this:



It is worth recalling that some time after entering the planned point in a comet orbit, the station will release the Filae probe, which will descend to the surface of the cosmic body. If all goes well, scientists will be able to get a lot of information about the composition of the cometary nucleus, the evaporation of matter from the comet’s body under the influence of the Sun, and the composition of the emissions.

The study of the water vapor outflow / composition of the gas “tail” of a comet is an important task, which makes it possible to trace the evolution of cometary matter, investigate the effect of evaporation on the movement of celestial bodies close to the cometion, and also explain the evolutionary processes of the solar system. It is possible that the study of comets will help to explain the appearance of water on our planet.

Via nasa