Scientists built a map of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko based on high-definition images

This photo shows surfaces of various types. The left part of the comet in the photo is a large part of the nucleus, the right is the “head”, the smaller part is

November, the moment the landing probe landed on the surface of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko is getting closer. The Rosetta interplanetary station is now located at a distance of several tens of kilometers from the comet, and every hour scientists receive more and more new data about the comet, its structure and features.

In addition, high-resolution photographs taken with the OSIRIS scientific instrument are also being received. Now the detail of photographs is very high: 1 pixel = 75 centimeters. According to scientists, this is a record quality of photographs: never before has a man seen the surface of a comet with such high detail.

Based on the latest photographs of the comet’s nucleus, experts made a kind of comet map. Scientists distinguish several homogeneous areas, each of which differs from the neighboring "region" in some way: by the presence of boulders, channels, hills or depressions. Of course, scientists create such a map not for their own pleasure (although this too), but in order to make the task of choosing a landing site for the Philae probe easier.



The first map of the comet's nucleus is only the beginning of work, since the surface of the comet still needs to be studied, and the terms are quite short. Already on September 13-14 of this year, the team responsible for the landing of the probe should choose only two landing zones: the main and alternative. In a couple of weeks, scientists should finally approve the main landing zone of the landing probe, and begin work on preparing for the landing.

It is worth noting that the Rosetta station itself was created by a large number of scientific organizations. Only in the creation of the OSIRIS tool did such scientific organizations asMax Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Germany, CISAS, University of Padova (Italy), Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (France), Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucia, CSIC (Spain), Scientific Support Office of the European Space Agency (The Netherlands), Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (Spain), Universidad Politéchnica de Madrid (Spain), Department of Physics and Astronomy of Uppsala University (Sweden), Institute of Computer and Network Engineering of the TU Braunschweig (Germany) .

Via mps