Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2016

SMALL BODIES tance and take very high-resolution im- ages, scientists took this opportunity for having a look inside these pits with the aim to understand the role that they play in the comet’s activity and, above all, to see what is hidden inside them. Some of the last images sent to Earth by the probe show strange blocks of material of a few metres size, which could be primeval cometesimals that in clustering together gave life to that part of the comet's nu- cleus during the first few million years of the solar system’s ex- istence. The instru- ments aboard Ro- setta have contin- ued to work until the very end, collect- ing and returning to Earth the most significant data on the environments closest to the sur- face of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where dust, gas and plasma are accelerat- ed to form the comet tails. The last image transmitted by the probe shows details of just a few centi- metres across to a degree unimagin- able not so long ago. Even though the mission’s oper- ational phase has finished on 30 Sep- tember, the analy- sis of the scientific data will continue for many years to come and it will cer- tainly lead to new discoveries. n L eft, the 26 geo- logical regions identified on 67P/C-G. [ESA/Ro- setta/MPS for OSI- RIS Team MPS/ UPD/LAM/IAA/SS O/INTA/UPM/DAS P/IDA; El-Maarry et al., A&A, 2016] T his picture is the last image sent to Earth by Rosetta when the probe was at an altitude of about 20 metres. The area framed is just 96 cm wide and the image scale is only 2 mm/ pixel. [ESA/Roset- ta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/ LAM/IAA/SSO/INT A/UPM/DASP/IDA] On the side, Ro- setta mission grand finale, an actual documen- tary in the form of animated fairy tale. [ESA]