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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-didn't-know-comets-had-elections dept.

The Rosetta spacecraft has observed shifting boulders and fractures on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko:

Images returned from the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission indicate that during its most recent trip through the inner solar system, the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was a very active place - full of growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and massive rolling boulders. Moving material buried some features on the comet's surface while exhuming others. A study on 67P's changing surface was released Tuesday, March 21, in the journal Science.

[...] In the case of the boulder, Rosetta's cameras observed a 282-million-pound (130-million-kilogram), 100-feet-wide (30-meter) space rock to have moved 150 yards (460 feet, or 140 meters) from its original position on the comet's nucleus. The massive space rock probably moved as a result of several outburst events that were detected close to its original position.

The warming of 67P also caused the comet's rotation rate to speed up. The comet's increasing spin rate in the lead-up to perihelion is thought to be responsible for a 1,600-foot-long (500-meters) fracture spotted in August 2014 that runs through the comet's neck. The fracture, which originally extended a bit longer than the Empire State Building is high, was found to have increased in width by about 100 feet (30 meters) by December 2014. Furthermore, in images taken in June 2016, a new 500- to 1,000-foot-long (150 to 300 meters) fracture was identified parallel to the original fracture. "The large crack was in the 'neck' of the comet -- a small central part that connects the two lobes," said El-Maarry. "The crack was extending--indicating that the comet may split up one day."

Also at ESA.

Surface changes on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko suggest a more active past (DOI: 10.1126/science.aak9384) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 23 2017, @06:38PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday March 23 2017, @06:38PM (#483336)

    It should be easily and implicitly understood that the pounds figure is if you were to move the entire mass of the comet to Earth's surface at sea level, because that's where the kg-to-lb conversion is valid. They could have stated the mass in slugs, but no one knows WTF a slug is outside of a physics class.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:06PM (#483401)

    ...and you still got it wrong.