The structure of the upper layer of a comet is a product of its surface activity. The Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS) on board Philae acquired close-range images of the Agilkia site during its ...descent onto comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. These images reveal a photometrically uniform surface covered by regolith composed of debris and blocks ranging in size from centimeters to 5 meters. At the highest resolution of 1 centimeter per pixel, the surface appears granular, with no apparent deposits of unresolved sand-sized particles. The thickness of the regolith varies across the imaged field from 0 to 1 to 2 meters. The presence of aeolian-like features resembling wind tails hints at regolith mobilization and erosion processes. Modeling suggests that abrasion driven by airfall-induced particle "splashing" is responsible for the observed formations.
•Philae’s ROLIS camera acquired 6 images of the surface of 67P after the final landing.•Illumination of the comet surface was provided by LEDs of four colors.•A local horizon is visible in one image ...corner, beyond which we can see the coma.•Seen at low phase angle, the comet surface displays a bimodal brightness distribution.•The surface seems to consist of plates with a consolidated crust, separated by cracks.
After coming to rest on the night side of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the ROLIS camera on-board Rosetta’s Philae lander acquired five images of the surface below the lander, four of which were with the aid of LED illumination of different colors. The images confirm that Philae was perched on a sloped surface. A local horizon is visible in one corner of the image, beyond which we can see the coma. Having spent a full day on the surface Philae was commanded to lift and rotate, after which a final, sixth, LED image was acquired. The change in perspective allowed us to construct a shape model of the surface. The distance to the foreground was about 80 cm, much larger than the nominal 30 cm. This caused stray light, rather than directly reflected LED light, to dominate the image signal, complicating the analysis. The images show a lumpy surface with a roughness of apparently fractal nature. Its appearance is completely different from that of the first landing site, which was characterized by centimeter to meter-sized debris (Mottola et al., 2015). We recognize neither particles nor pores at the image resolution of 0.8 mm per pixel and large color variations are absent. The surface has a bi-modal brightness distribution that can be interpreted in terms of the degree of consolidation, a hypothesis that we support with experimental evidence. We propose the surface below the lander to consist of smooth, cracked plates with unconsolidated edges, similar to terrain seen in CIVA images.
The lander Philae of the Rosetta mission landed on the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. Among the specific subsystems and instruments carried on Philae, the ...sampling, drilling and distribution (SD2) subsystem had the role of providing in-situ operations devoted to soil drilling, sample collection, and their distribution to three scientific instruments. After landing, a first sequence of scientific activities was carried out, relying mainly on the energy stored in the lander primary battery. Due to the limited duration and the communication delay, these activities had to be carried out automatically, with a limited possibility of developing and uploading commands from the ground. Philae׳s landing was not nominal and SD2 was operated in unexpected conditions: the lander was not anchored to the soil and leant on the comet surface shakily. Nevertheless, one sampling procedure was attempted. This paper provides an overview of SD2 operation planning and on-comet operations, and analyses SD2 achievements during the first science sequence of Philae׳s on-comet operations.
•The operation of Philae׳s sampling, drilling and distribution subsys-tem is described.•The approach used to optimize SD2 telecommand buffer allocation is discussed.•The onboard management of on-comet non-nominal scenarios is ad-dressed.•SD2 telemetry produced during the on-comet first science sequence is analysed.•The analysis of ROLIS images is presented to interpret SD2 telemetry 1.
The ROLIS, CIVA-P and OSIRIS instruments on-board the Philae lander and the Rosetta orbiter acquired high-resolution images during the lander׳s descent towards the targeted landing site Agilkia, ...during its unexpected rebounds and at the final landing site Abydos on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. We, exploited these images, using robotic vision techniques, to locate the first touchdown on the surface of the comet nucleus, to reconstruct the lander׳s 3D trajectory during the descent and at the beginning of the first rebound, and to create local digital terrain models and depth maps of Agilkia and Abydos sites. Using the ROLIS close-up images we could also determine the actual movements of the lander between the beginning and the end of the First Science Sequence and we propose a new lander׳s bubble movement command meant to increase the probability for a successful drilling during a hypothetical future Long Term Science phase.
The structure of the upper layer of a comet is a product of its surface activity. The Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS) on board Philae acquired close-range images of the Agilkia site during its ...descent onto comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. These images reveal a photometrically uniform surface covered by regolith composed of debris and blocks ranging in size from centimeters to 5 meters. At the highest resolution of 1 centimeter per pixel, the surface appears granular, with no apparent deposits of unresolved sand-sized particles. The thickness of the regolith varies across the imaged field from 0 to 1 to 2 meters. The presence of aeolian-like features resembling wind tails hints at regolith mobilization and erosion processes. Modeling suggests that abrasion driven by airfall-induced particle "splashing" is responsible for the observed formations.
After coming to rest on the night side of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the ROLIS camera on-board Rosetta's Philae lander acquired five images of the surface below the lander, four of which were ...with the aid of LED illumination of different colors. The images confirm that Philae was perched on a sloped surface. A local horizon is visible in one corner of the image, beyond which we can see the coma. Having spent a full day on the surface Philae was commanded to lift and rotate, after which a final, sixth, LED image was acquired. The change in perspective allowed us to construct a shape model of the surface. The distance to the foreground was about 80 cm, much larger than the nominal 30 cm. This caused stray light, rather than directly reflected LED light, to dominate the image signal, complicating the analysis. The images show a lumpy surface with a roughness of apparently fractal nature. Its appearance is completely different from that of the first landing site, which was characterized by centimeter to meter-sized debris (Mottola et al., 2015). We recognize neither particles nor pores at the image resolution of 0.8 mm per pixel and large color variations are absent. The surface has a bi-modal brightness distribution that can be interpreted in terms of the degree of consolidation, a hypothesis that we support with experimental evidence. We propose the surface below the lander to consist of smooth, cracked plates with unconsolidated edges, similar to terrain seen in CIVA images.
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