Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
The release of the first color image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the comet upon which the ESA’s Philae probe landed last month, suggests that it may not be steel gray or charcoal black as previously believed.
“We’ve seen crags, its weird kidney shape and all sorts of dramatic shadows playing across the comet’s surface. One thing all those images have in common is that they’re in stark, artsy black and white,” said Amanda Kooser of CNET. “This leaves us with a curious question: what does 67P look like in color?”
In actuality, the image, which was captured by Rosetta’s OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera and released Monday in advance of a research paper scheduled to be presented at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco later on this month, indicates that the comet may actually be reddish-brown in color.
The authors of that report, which include researchers from ESA, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research and other institutions, have promised to release higher-resolution, darker images of the picture in concert with their December 18 presentation.
Previously, all publically-released pictures of Comet 67P/C-G were taken using Rosetta’s Navcam, which can only capture images in grey-scale, according to the Daily Mail. While OSIRIS, a dual imaging system operating in the visible, near infrared and near ultraviolet wavelength ranges, also lacks color sensors, it does possess filter wheels which allow for the imaging of wavelengths in red, green and blue.
Each of those photos can then be combined to create a “true color” image, though the newly released image is somewhat blurred due to the fact that each was shot from a slightly different angle as the comet moved between exposures, said Engadget’s Steve Dent, who added that a version of the color photo was “cleaned up… in Photoshop” by Reddit user IG-94.
According to the report authors, “the full nucleus will be mapped at multiple resolutions” and the mapping “will include imaging using the full spectral range of… the OSIRIS imaging system (245nm to 1000nm in 11 optical filters). The color mapping will be done under good illumination condition at ~1m/pixel as part of the pyramid arc approach phase. This will later be followed by higher resolution imaging (down to 20 cm/pixels) of parts of the nucleus.”
“Rosetta’s comet will continue to be a source of fascination,” Kooser added. “Whether this image depicts what the comet would look like if you happened to be looking at it while riding on Rosetta, it definitely offers up a new perspective on our previously gray-scale viewpoint.”
In related news, the Daily Mail is also reporting that the Philae lander could become operational as early as March 2015, as Comet 67P/C-G moves closer to the sun. The UK newspaper said that currently, the probe is receiving one hour of sunlight each day and its batteries are frozen in temperatures of -170 degrees Celsius.
During a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything session, engineers said that conditions needed to become warmer before the battery could be charged. Michael Maibaum, Philae systems engineer, said it was “like trying to power your house with solar panels when you live in Alaska just below the Arctic Circle during the winter,” but he and his colleagues believe the increased warmth and sunlight could warm up the batteries enough to keep them charged.
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First Color Image Reveals A Reddish Comet 67P/C-G
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