COBS News archive

Final destination: Ma’at region
July 29, 2016
The decision has been made for the location of Rosetta’s controlled impact on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 30 September 2016, ending the mission.

CometWatch 9 July
July 29, 2016
This week's CometWatch image was taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 9 July 2016, when the spacecraft was 11.7 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

CometWatch 30 June
July 29, 2016
Today's CometWatch entry, also featured as ESA Space Science Image of the Week, is an image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken with Rosetta's navigation camera (NAVCAM) on 30 June 2016, from a distance of 25.8 km.

CometWatch 25 June 2016
July 05, 2016
This week's CometWatch image was taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 25 June 2016, when the spacecraft was 16.7 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Chaotic orbit of Comet Halley explained
July 01, 2016
A team of Dutch and Scottish researchers led by Simon Portegies Zwart (Leiden University) has found an explanation for the chaotic behavior of the orbit of Halley's Comet. The findings are accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

CometWatch 17 June
June 27, 2016
This week’s CometWatch entry soaks up the sights of a number of regions on both the small (right) and large (left) lobes of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The image was taken by Rosetta’s NAVCAM on 17 June from a distance of 30.8 km, and the image measures about 2.7 km across.

New Comet: C/2016 K1 (LINEAR)
June 18, 2016
CBET nr. 4282, issued on 2016, June 05, announces the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (magnitude ~18.5) found on CCD images taken on May 31 with the 3.5-m f/1 Space Surveillance Telescope on Atom Peak in the White Sands Missile Range, NM, USA, in the course of the LINEAR survey.

CometWatch 13 June
June 18, 2016
This image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was taken by Rosetta’s NAVCAM on 13 June 2016 from a distance of 28.5 km to the centre of the comet.

CometWatch 2 June
June 16, 2016
This week's CometWatch entry is an image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 2 June 2016, when the spacecraft was 23.6 km from the comet centre.

CometWatch 19 May
May 30, 2016
This week's CometWatch entry is an image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 19 May 2016, when the spacecraft was 7.6 km from the centre of the comet nucleus and about 5.6 km from the surface.

CometWatch 15 May
May 23, 2016
This week’s CometWatch entry from Rosetta’s NAVCAM was taken on 15 May 2016 when the spacecraft was 9.88 km from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Hubble catches views of a jet rotating with Comet 252P/LINEAR
May 15, 2016
This sequence of images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows Comet 252P/LINEAR as it passed by Earth. The visit was one of the closest encounters between a comet and our planet.

CometWatch 1 May
May 15, 2016
This week's CometWatch is an image taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 1 May 2016, when the spacecraft was 18.8 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

CometWatch 24 April
May 02, 2016
This week's CometWatch was taken by Rosetta's NAVCAM on 24 April 2016, 28 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

CometWatch 19 April
April 28, 2016
This week's CometWatch features an image obtained with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 19 April 2016, 29.4 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Space science image of the week: Around Anuket
April 28, 2016
A recent NAVCAM image of Comet 67P-Churyumov Gerasimenko is featured as our ESA Space Science Image of the Week.

CometWatch 10 April
April 18, 2016
After a far excursion to explore the tail of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Rosetta is now back to closer distances from the comet nucleus. This week's CometWatch image was obtained with Rosetta's NAVCAM at 01:39 UTC on 10 April 2016, 31.4 km away.

CometWatch 4 April
April 11, 2016
This week Rosetta has been moving back towards Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko again following its far excursion in the anti-sunward direction to study the wider coma, tail and plasma environment.

CometWatch 27 March
April 04, 2016
Last week, Rosetta embarked on an excursion around 1000 km in the anti-sunward direction to study the wider coma, tail and plasma environment of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Comet’s dust trail stretches over 10 million km
March 29, 2016
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Geraimenko’s dust trail has been observed to stretch at least 10 million kilometres in the latest images taken by professional astronomers working on the ground-based observing campaign. The image mosaic shown here is composed of four images taken using the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma on the night of 12 March.