High-Resolution Images Released from Rosetta of Comet 67P

The pictures were released at a press conference where ESA scientists revealed that they couldn't find Philae on the images sent back by Rosetta , although they remain hopeful that as the comet gets closer to the sun it will receive enough light for Philae to reveal its position.

The red cross marks the initial landing point

The latest assessment suggests communications could be re-established in the May/June timeframe, with Philae distributing enough electricity to its instruments to resume operations around September.
This would be at perihelion - the time when the comet is closest to the Sun (185 million km away) and at its most active.
Scientists continue to pore over the data Philae managed to send back before going into hibernation.
Some of the results - together with ongoing Rosetta observations - were reported at the recent American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco

These high-resolution images are not normally shown publicly because the camera team has been given an exclusive period to study the data and make discoveries.
www.bbc.co.uk...

Great pictures

It's amazing that we are looking at a comet hurtling through space here.. what an achievement. .

a reply to: Misterlondon

As someone who grew up watching grainy Moon landing footage it never ceases to amaze me the quality of the images we get from these missions , in one sense we haven't gone very far in the last few decades and in another we've made a giant leap.

We need to get that camera over to Mars ASAP...

Wow awesome pics

That would boggle the mind, I tried to imagine walking on its surface then wanted to get off, it's almost like a warped image of a mountain range, I guess it is in a way

a reply to: gortex
Terrific images! It bogles the mind and warms the heart what humanity CAN achieve.

Great, now we got the government putting camera's and survielance taking pics on meteors too. Hey E.T. whats going on out there. he,he,he. Got any E.T PORN YET.

I guess Armageddon got it right.

Cool rock. Looks like a lot of the rocks in Djibouti.

Thanks for posting. The article answers something I have been asking myself: Can the orbiter see the lander? Thus checking out what happened?

This is so totally amazing. Pictures from a comet. Wow......

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
We need to get that camera over to Mars ASAP...

I think they do have high resolution cameras on Mars but for some reason we aren't allowed to see those pictures.

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
We need to get that camera over to Mars ASAP...

I think they do have high resolution cameras on Mars but for some reason we aren't allowed to see those pictures.

Erm, ever heard of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter with its HiRISE camera? Its images are available to the public. It has resolution of up to 25 cm/pixel, as good as the best spy satellites over Earth. www.uahirise.org...

Back on topic, the images in the OP aren't those high-res Osiris images that are usually reserved for scientists, those are low-res NAVCAM images that you can find at ESA Rosetta blog: blogs.esa.int...

I'm looking forward to the time we can access those Osiris images, because I want to make true-colour RGB composites from them

a reply to: gortex


From the OP:

"These high-resolution images are not normally shown publicly because the camera team has been given an exclusive period to study the data and make discoveries."
www.bbc.co.uk...

Anybody remember how the excellent Viking probes showing too much of the patterns of the grooves on Phobos that they provoked serious questions about their origin? And that shortly thereafter the instantaneous releases of images from space bodies was restricted? An insider named Malin was given an exclusive contract to all Mars' images after that. His company had up to a year to analysis them before they were released for public consumption.

The better images from the Viking mission were the best every of the grooves on Phobos, but they have been plowed over, buried, by heaps of other data and information, but none as indicative and specific to intelligent actions in our solar system as the grooves on Phobos.

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
We need to get that camera over to Mars ASAP...

I think they do have high resolution cameras on Mars but for some reason we aren't allowed to see those pictures.

I've seen them. We're all allowed to see them, and they are publicly available on the internet.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and its HiRISE camera has a resolution of about 30 cm/pixel, which is roughly equal to Rosetta's OSIRIS camera, which is 28 cm per pixel.

Here is a link many of those high-resolution images of Mars:
Arizona State University -- HiRISE Camera Website

The site includes links to the (very large) image files, but they can take a long time to download, even with broadband. For the advanced user, there is the "HiView" image browser, but that requires a download of the browser software.


Edit to Add:
I see 'wildspace' has already posted something similar.

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
We need to get that camera over to Mars ASAP...

If you don't think it is already there, then brother I am afraid I have some bad news for you!

We only see what we are allowed to see from "them"....I am sure there are great pictures and maybe even ground breaking pictures that we may never see from Mars...Or maybe one day, we just might...Who really knows?

We are only shown and told what the powers that be want us to see and hear, nothing more...

originally posted by: wildespace

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
We need to get that camera over to Mars ASAP...

I think they do have high resolution cameras on Mars but for some reason we aren't allowed to see those pictures.

Erm, ever heard of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter with its HiRISE camera? Its images are available to the public. It has resolution of up to 25 cm/pixel, as good as the best spy satellites over Earth. www.uahirise.org...

)

Yes the orbiter photos are very nice, but the pictures from the Rover seem substandard to the available technology.
It's the Rover photos I'm interested in. Perhaps it the CTist in me, but they seem very selective about the photos they release, selectively placed smudges on the one's they do release etc. Why is that?

a reply to: gortex

Sweet share; love this stuff.

I have to wonder why it's black and white - of course - but that point aside...

I find it interesting that there's sediment collected in the nooks and crannies on this rock that is absolutely cooking through space right now. Says to me that it hasn't collided with anything, big or small, for a pretty long time.

Cool stuff.

originally posted by: Misterlondon
It's amazing that we are looking at a comet hurtling through space here.. what an achievement. .

Just Like Earth, Mars, Jupiter the Moon etc.. I see no great achievement here as we already crash landed into a comet the year before. Waste of bloody money as far as i can see.

a reply to: olaru12

Even though taxpayers paid for it.

a reply to: Soloprotocol

Just like?

Rosetta was planned over 20 years ago. They launched it over 10 years ago. They drove it 10 years to the meeting point, gathering velocity from Mars and Earth. No biggie, eh?

The comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, is a relatively small object, about 4 kilometres in diameter, moving at a speed as great as 135,000 kilometres per hour.

I'm stunned by your post. Eh, i mean, blew a fuse.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko loops around the Sun between the orbits of Jupiter and Earth, that is, between about 800 million and 186 million kilometres from the Sun. But rendezvousing with the comet required travelling a cumulative distance of over 6.4 billion kilometres. As no launcher was capable of directly injecting Rosetta into such an orbit, gravity assists were needed from four planetary flybys – one of Mars (2007) and three of Earth (2005, 2007 and 2009) – a long circuitous trip that took ten years to complete.