nice to get some (positive) feedback - sometimes i wonder if it is worth posting the information here

btw, if it would head for earth it wouldn't destroy it but cause some damage where it might hit (see comparison with inner london in previous posts)
so the question would be where should it hit to improve the world? what about washington, london, moscow, jerusalem, gaza, territory of isis ...
but perhaps it should split up and hit a few of those

but some more from rosetta (some detail might look familiar from post#50):



Four image montage of comet 67P/C-G, using images taken on 7 September (with some intensity adjustment and background noise cleaning). Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

and here a link for a video explaining "Rosetta’s imaging and spectroscopy instruments"

http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2014/09/Rosetta_s_imaging_and_spectroscopy_instruments

Man this is so cool lol. Keep with the updates. I'm pretty busy of late and it's nice to read through the thread for them. Is it visible from earth via an amateur telescope ?

you and busy? spend less time chatting with gc users and begging people to exchange pms with you

to find the location let me repeat a link i gave earlier: http://www.livecometdata.com/comets/67p-churyumov-gerasimenko/
but with the estimated visual magnitude to be 19.56 you would need quite a huge light bucket
work out what your telescope can achieve by using http://www.cruxis.com/scope/limitingmagnitude.htm
perhaps when it comes closer to the sun and becomes more visible some amateur telescope can pick it up but from
http://www.space.com/27045-rosetta-comet-darker-than-charcoal.html

Instead of arriving at a bright, reflective, ice-covered heavenly body, the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe found that its target comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (or 67P/C-G), appears darker than charcoal in some wavelengths of light, according to new data collected by an instrument on the spacecraft. And, so far, scientists working with the Alice instrument on Rosetta have not found any large patches of water-ice on Comet 67P/C-G's surface.
"We're a bit surprised at just how unreflective the comet's surface is and how little evidence of exposed water-ice it shows," Alan Stern, Alice principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement

and this is what esa says about 'Alice':

ALICE (Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer) analyses gases in the coma and tail and measures the comet's production rates of water and carbon monoxide/dioxide. It also provides information on the surface composition of the nucleus.
Principal Investigator: Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

and yes, it had to happen since it is so fashionable:

ROSETTA MISSION SELFIE AT COMET



Using the CIVA camera on Rosetta’s Philae lander, the spacecraft have snapped a ‘selfie’ at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The image was taken on 7 September from a distance of about 50 km from the comet, and captures the side of the Rosetta spacecraft and one of Rosetta’s 14 m-long solar wings, with 67P/C-G in the background. Two images with different exposure times were combined to bring out the faint details in this very high contrast situation.

and what does ÇIVA do?

ÇIVA Six identical micro-cameras take panoramic pictures of the surface. A spectrometer studies the composition, texture and albedo (reflectivity) of samples collected from the surface.
Principal Investigator: Jean-Pierre Bibring, Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris Sud, Orsay, France.

and now rosetta is going into the global mapping phase:

We are now in the Transition to Global Mapping (TGM) phase, that is, the two hyperbolic segments of the trajectory that move us from the 50km pyramid of the Close Approach Phase (CAT) to the 30-km gravitationally bound orbit of the Global Mapping Phase (GMP). ...
On Wednesday, 10 September, 09:00 UTC (11:00 CEST) the spacecraft will be at the terminator plane (the plane passing through the centre of the comet and perpendicular to the Sun direction) and will perform a 19-cm/s manoeuvre (thruster burn) to insert the spacecraft onto the 30-km circular orbit.
"The orbital plane is 60 degrees away from the Sun’s direction and is such that we will orbit over areas of the comet in their ‘morning hours’," says Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta Flight Director.
"This results in orbits with periods of exactly 14 days. However, we will not fly all of each orbit!"



which means, now there will come images from around 30 km for the next few days, here is the first they released:



Four image NAVCAM mosaic of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, using images taken on 10 September when Rosetta was 27.8 km from the comet.

Truely can't wait for it to land and start taking samples.
And to think this can, somewhat finaly, give us a glimpse into our true origins...
I just hope, if such data is desicted, it won't be kept secret for the population.

let me repeat from post#13:

Who will obtain data from Rosetta, and how will it be distributed?
Rosetta's Science Ground Segment will be responsible for collecting and distributing the scientific data. The unit will be based at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, and at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain. It will be responsible for the collection of the scientific data received from the spacecraft and its distribution to the principal investigators.
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.

and let me also add some more information on the image in the last post:

Four-image NAVCAM mosaic comprising images taken on 10 September from a distance of 27.8 km from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (reminder: the distance is given to the centre of the comet). The image scale is approximately 2.5 metres per pixel.

@ 'James84'

forgot to add to the last post that the 6 months exclusive period will actually ensure that results should become available quite soon
every one of the scientists having exclusive rights will try to gain the maximum mileage by publishing as much as possible before the data becomes available to everyone
and 6 months is not a long time so there is a lot of pressure to work hard during that period

but let's add a quite old (a couple of weeks) image i just came across



Temperature measurements of the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko generated from data recorded by the VIRTIS instrument. The maps, on an orthographic projection of the comet’s surface centred on the 0° meridian (left) and the 180° meridian (right), show the temperature for local time between 12h and 14h. The data were obtained in July and August 2014 when the comet was between 3.6AU and 3.45AU from the Sun, and the spacecraft was closing in from 14000km to less than 100 km from the comet nucleus. The locations of the five candidate landing sites for the Philae lander are indicated. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/VIRTIS/INAF-IAPS/OBS DE PARIS-LESIA/DLR

This post was edited by brmv on Sep 13 2014 05:29am

here is the first 'territorial' map of the comet:



A newly released map depicts the "belly" and part of the "head" of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This map shows several morphologically different regions. Image posted Sept. 11, 2014.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

and here is some of the data scientists of the project try to make sense of:



Positions along the Rosetta flight path of 27 dust grains (red dots) detected by GIADA in August 2014. Five grains (yellow dots) were detected by both the Grain Detection System and the Impact Sensor.
Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/GIADA/Univ Parthenope NA/INAF-OAC/IAA/INAF-IAPS

postscript to



if you are really desperate get up early on monday and use this link: http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov/news/watch-rosetta-landing-site-selection-announcement

Watch live as the target for Rosetta's lander is announced at ESA Headquarters on 15 September, streaming starts at 0900 GMT / 1100 CEST / 0200 PDT
(The final two sites, along with their operational challenges and scientific expectations, will be presented during the briefing )

if i am right and you have summer time right now, it should start 05:00 your local time