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The comet being studied by Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has massive sinkholes in its surface that are nearly wide enough to swallow Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza, research published on Wednesday shows.
Scientists suspect the pits formed when material on the comet's surface collapsed, similar to sinkholes on Earth, a study published in the journal Nature said.
Somewhat surprising, since the expectation would be that pits on cometary surfaces form by expansion of gases increasing pressure in cavities within the comet, eventually resulting in an eruption of mass from the comet. And the low gravity of a comet would cause the sinkholes to only form slowly.
The discovery is expected to help scientists piece together a better understanding of how comets formed and evolved.
But there are many pieces of the puzzle still to be found.
Here's the article from Reuters. See, also, our coverage of Philae Comet Lander has Woken Up Again. Wikipedia has more information on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday July 02 2015, @06:25PM
Something down there may have degassed away over eons, and the thin bridges of accumulated debris simply collapsed slowly the void. They have been watching this degassing for almost a year, and can track the resultant dust plume to these so-called sinkholes
The ESA's own page explains this degassing [esa.int].
The pits seem to be aligned in rough rows, suggesting fault lines, or that the comet is just a loose ball of dirt with moving parts. There is barely enough gravity to keep the major chunks together. The closer to the sun it gets the more energy to melt things.
Probably more material gets carried away by degassing than accumulates when its close to the sun.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.