back to article Rosetta's comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is one FUGLY space rock

The European Space Agency's (ESA's) Rosetta probe reached its intended orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko last week. Since then we've heard … well more or less nothing, actually. The ESA has said very little about what Rosetta is doing, or learning, way out there in the unfashionable parts of the solar system. But …

  1. jake Silver badge

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

    Advancing knowledge is the most beautiful thing known to humankind.

    1. Rich 11

      Re: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

      That and a Beckham direct free kick.

  2. Raumkraut

    Please enable Javascript to use this feature

    Well I can't comment on the images, because I couldn't see them. Even though I'd enabled javascript from a half-dozen different domains (all the ones which weren't blatant advertising platforms), plus a gazillian different google domains.

    Oh well, I'm sure I can find the images on a more friendly news site.

    1. PleebSmash

      Re: Please enable Javascript to use this feature

      http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images

    2. jonathan1

      Re: Please enable Javascript to use this feature

      Jolly good thought I was going crazy. Interestingly...I opened this in Chrome, where I have no ad-blocking installed...no pictures either?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Please enable Javascript to use this feature

      You're not going mad, but javascript will not make any difference:

      Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (Not Found)

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/Slideshow/show/20

      Just a snafu

    4. immortal
      FAIL

      Re: Please enable Javascript to use this feature

      The slideshow points to http://www.theregister.co.uk/Slideshow/show/20 which gives a 404 not found.

      1. JudeKay (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: Re: Please enable Javascript to use this feature

        Sorry about this. The tech team is currently working on a solution.

        1. BlueGreen

          Re: Please enable Javascript to use this feature

          > The tech team is currently working on a solution.

          The 'solution' is not to use javascript.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Found one

    I particularly like this one http://www.clarin.com/sociedad/superficie-fotografiada-Rosetta-kilometros-distancia_CLAIMA20140812_0178_27.png

    To me, this is not a fugly rock at all. It is possibly billions of years worth of questions and answers and that makes it one lovely hunk o'space shit.

    Now, check out the party mask at around 10 O'clock and in from the edge a couple clicks. Oh yeah, that face on Mars got nothing on that dude.

    Also, in the middle, you can just never find good plaster people when you need them. Space gypsies, they take your money and never finish the job.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Found one

      > makes it one lovely hunk o'space shit.

      SUPER SPACE DINOSAURS!

      1. Shepster

        Re: Found one

        Phwooooaarrr!!

  4. Parax
    Terminator

    May I be the first...

    ..to welcome our rubber duck overlords..

  5. StephenD

    "More or less nothing"?

    If you've heard nothing, maybe it's because you haven't been listening in the right places.

    Try http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/ or http://rosetta.esa.int/ or https://www.facebook.com/RosettaMission or https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta, plus various tech/astronomy websites, etc. etc.

    Even the Mail Online, once past the populist dross, gives reasonable coverage: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2721752/The-face-Rosettas-comet-Eerily-human-features-spotted-67P-icy-rock-hurtles-deep-space.html

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You're not such an ug-ly asteroid, with craters all blotchy and brown..

    It's a swan!

  7. P0l0nium

    The politics of science ...

    "Since when they have said absolutely NOTHING" ...

    They were planning to SHOW nothing either until there was an outcry among "astro-nerds" whereupon they graciously agreed to show us 1 low-res image per day - which they are now robotically doing to keep the proletariat of taxpayers happy.

    Its mostly about academic grandstanding with OUR results so they can claim credit for papers and discoveries when the next round of gravy-train funding is determined.

    Wouldn't want someone who isn't academically trained doing any science, would we??

    Contrast with the Mars Rover people ...

    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The politics of science ...

      This is a bit of a tricky one. On one hand, "images for everyone, asap" is a very attractive idea, seeing as its publically funded; on the other, this is a mission that various scientist have staked their careers on - conceiving it, getting it funded through various stages, keeping it going, and now (finally, after 10+years) getting the data. This data wouldn't exist without that very considerable effort on their part; and now it's coming in, they want first look so they can start doing the science and publishing the science they worked so hard and so long for. I think its not too hard to understand that they might want first crack at the data, and they don't want to be scooped by someone (anyone) who did nothing to generate it except contribute some tiny fraction of their tax contributions.

      Personally, I think its a shame that this mission isn't a bit more open with their data, but I don't know the details. As I understand it, the probe isn't getting any closer in at the moment, so the value to the non-specialist of a daily series of rather similar images, however high or low res, seems a little hard to determine. But that leads me on to your interest in citizen (non-academically trained) science. What science were you hoping to hoping to do with the so-far unavailable stream of hi-res images from Rosetta?

      1. P0l0nium

        Re: The politics of science ...

        "This data wouldn't exist without that very considerable effort on their part"

        For which they were paid from public funds and would otherwise have had to find jobs in the real economy.

        "What science were you hoping to hoping to do with the so-far unavailable stream of hi-res images from Rosetta?"

        I was planning to learn what their science projects were and do the analysis faster than them and then claim credit for the discoveries so that I get funded to run the next space mission and they all have to work in McDonalds.

        1. Paul Kinsler

          Re: rosetta data

          From the Rosetta/ESA faq at http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Frequently_asked_questions

          "The principal investigators head up the teams building the Rosetta instruments and will have the exclusive right to work with the data for six months. After this period, the data will be stored in ESA’s Planetary Science Archive and made freely available to the world's scientific community."

          1. P0l0nium

            Re: rosetta data

            Well at least they've GOT a policy...

            It seems that the millions of small public contributions that SHOULD be rewarded with millions of "small rewards" are to be hoarded for the exclusive 6 month "big reward" of a bunch of science apparatchiks.

            It sucks!! ... Where's my data???

  8. TRT Silver badge

    Well I have to say that ...

    I have seen less attractive sculptures on display at the Royal Academy before.

  9. Rikkeh

    This is driving me crazy

    Are the pictures in black and white or not?

    It's even worse than being a penguin in a snowstorm trying to work out whether or not he's gone colour blind.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: This is driving me crazy

      They're in colour. Grey-to-black is the predominant colour of space rocks, which is one of the reasons they're so hard to see.

      To answer another poster, the moon does have a "colour" - Black. It's blacker than a lump of black coal, which is just as well or nightside earth would be a pretty bright place on a full moon and noone would get any sleep :)

      1. TRT Silver badge

        As ane fule no...

        the moon is blue. Except for the bits that are made of green cheese. And sometimes it's red, blood red. If that happens when it is rising, then it's a bad moon. It's also silvery.

      2. Rustident Spaceniak

        Re: This is driving me crazy

        I think you have a slight misunderstanding there.

        The daily images released by ESA are those made with the NAVCAM navigation instrument. It has a single CCD and, so far as I could ascertain, no colour filter. That wouldn't be needed for navigation anyway. The OSIRIS camera, on the other hand, has IR, multispectral and colour modes - but we've only been treated to a very few images from it so far (and haven't even been told whether they're panchromatic or what, as far as I could make out).

        Re the colour of heavenly bodies, yes, comets are very nearly perfectly black (which is kind of a pity 'cause it makes them so hard to see) but the Moon is not. Its overall reflectivity is about 12%. Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts are darkish grey, with a very slight yellowish hue. So is the dust you can see at various museums, only darker. Nonetheless, there's an interesting anecdote related by Eugene Cernan, the last man on the moon (on Apollo 17), about an endless discussion relating to the Moon's colour which he had on the way back with Harrison Schmitt, the mission's geologist. And indeed, if you increase the colour saturation of some Moon photos by a factor of ginormous, you see yellow, orange, and blue hues coming out in various places; but they can't be discerned by looking at the Moon with the bare eye (even up close), because they're so weak, and the sunlight is so bright up there that the human eye can only distinguish dazzling light and total darkness in the shadow. It'll be different for Rosetta which is now over 3 times as far from the Sun as we are, so gets less stark illumination. With luck and good camera settings, we may actually be allowed to discern colours.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is driving me crazy

        Who wants to sleep under a full moon anyway?

  10. Rustident Spaceniak
    Boffin

    What did you expect a comet to look like in b&w?

    What's surprising and beautiful is there actually seem to be patches of lighter gray that look like ET has been skiing down them - not that you could in cometary gravity, but I've seen less attractive slopes in the Alps. Speaking of the Alps, the thing looks a bit like the lower end of the Hochfeiler glacier, wrapped around some fancy thing out of Mathematica. To me, that's all par for the course.

    What will be interesting is to see whether, unlike the Moon, it actually has a distinguishable colour. And just how soft the surface is. And what it's really made of. And when the Grebulons come out looking and pointing at Rosetta.

  11. Alfie
    Alien

    Reg link?

    Am I the only one that thinks pic 1 looks like a vultures head on its side?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Reg link?

      It's the manfacturer's logo, silly!

  12. Tromos

    It may be a fugly rubber duck now...

    ...but one day it will become a beautiful rubber swan. Or possibly not.

  13. Julz
    Joke

    Fake!

    There are no stars in the background! Just another government fake to justify syphoning money from ESA into their private bank accounts.

  14. Brian Souder 1

    2 Comets or a Split

    It almost looks like 2 Oort cloud objects collided into one, or prior passes around the sun eroded some of the middle. Maybe it will split in two someday. I find all the impacts on it interesting as well. If the comet loses outer material on successive passes, shouldn't this have a similar effect as water on Earth?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 2 Comets or a Split

      Mmh, comet split! I'll have two.

  15. Mike Bell

    The Rosetta NavCam photos aren't the greatest quality, compared with something from its narrow angle camera. When you see it properly, it does have a certain rugged beauty about it.

    In my opinion, it's a pity that ESA aren't being more forthcoming with the data. Anyone remember the heady days of Hayabusa in 2005? The Japanese released fantastic pics on a daily basis as they approached asteroid 25143 Itokawa.

    1. Rustident Spaceniak
      Thumb Up

      ESA has been a bit more forthcoming today

      Here are a couple of images - one in 3D - from OSIRIS. Still panchromatic, but this might be due to the low bit rate from Rosie.

      http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/08/Comet_on_7_August_a

      In any case, the closer it gets, the nicer it looks.

      EDIT: Looking at the jagged cliffs all around the duck's neck, in stark contrast to the cratered surfaces on top and bottom and the smooth surface below, I wouldn't say it's unimaginable that a number of large pieces of the original comet might have broken off there, and debris collected in the "valley" that is now the neck.

    2. cordwainer 1

      @Mike Bell: Very nice, you can see the cupholder in that one,,,

      interestingly BEHIND the saddle, which raises a few questions about the rider's anatomy.

  16. Gobhicks

    Explains why comets get all dressed up when they come downtown...

  17. WalterAlter
    Devil

    Dirty Snowball My Ass

    (Cue Clockwork Orange theme) Well, well, well. Well, well, well, well... Rock, not snow, rock. Like any meteor or asteroid, rock. Maybe some metal. Why does the snowball meme die hard? How else you going to get a comet's tail without ELECTRICAL PLASMA ARC SPUTTERING? Yah, do the math- Solar Wind = ionized gas = electricity. Asteroid has different charge potential from sun, space dialectric breaks down, bzzzt, short circuit. Water was never detected in comet tails. Hydroxlys were detected. That's HO not H2O. HO is also generated by the breakdown of any mineral with H and O in its composition. Gonna be a lot of forehead slapping going on among the astronomy orthodoxy HO's when Rosetta starts delivering the data. I'm making popcorn. www.thunderbolts.info

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It looks like the light-cycle from Tron

    Kinda

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It looks like the light-cycle from Tron

    Or a bunny.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge

      Re: It looks like the light-cycle from Tron

      I think that picture 3 looks like the Starship Enterprise after a particularly severe kicking from the Klingons.

  20. Captain DaFt

    Ugly?

    I find it rather starkly beautiful, alien and unearthly.

    Maybe the writer found it ugly because some of the angles and curves wouldn't be normal on Earth?

  21. Ben 65
    Pirate

    That's no moon...

    It's clearly the back end of an Imperial Star Destroyer... Compare <a href="http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/54497-comet-67p-on-12-august-2014-navcam/">photo #6 from the article</a> with <a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4122/4929759128_8282e59f48_z.jpg">a genuine photo of the space dreadnought</a>.

    Before we attempt to rocket a probe into the derriere of the Sith, this coward wants to point out that he was never really down with the rebel scum anyway.

  22. Dave 42

    What's wrong? Several times in this Register article, space is simply spelled space - not the recognized convention here of SPAAAAACE. Do follow the style guide chaps.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like