The beauty of 67P

Well, another day and another stunning navcam mosaic release from those wonderful people at ESA’s ROSETTA mission. This time we’re seeing an area of the comet I’m not sure we’ve actually seen before…? It’s certainly an angle we haven’t seen before…

…and with a bit of work…

But really, as soon as I saw that image today I saw one section and smiled, because it just screamed out to be cropped and enhanced to make it look… Well, like this…please click on it to enlarge it, as usual…

Imagine you’re flying low over the surface of Comet 67P, hugging the contours of the landscape, up and down over the ridges, scarps and valleys… suddenly the view opens up in front of you, like a curtain being pulled open, and you see *this*…

Isn’t that a glorious, stunning view? I want to say – again – a HUGE Thank You to the team at ESA which continues to produce and release these navcam views, which allow people all around the world to explore the comet and see new, unbelievable views of it every day. I have no doubt that without their efforts the ROSETTA mission would have slipped out of the spotlight the very day after Philae’s landing, because as everyone knows now, to their shame the OSIRIS team are exploring the comet in secret and not sharing anything – not an image, not a name, not a thing – with anyone outside of their offices. But thanks to the ESA team releasing these navcams, the public and the media are still aware that Europe has a spacecraft exploring a comet, out there in the depths of space.

Finally for this post an absolutely unashamed flight of fancy…