It’s alive! Rosetta probe’s new data on comet origins

The Philae probe touched down on the 2.5 mile-wide comet in November after a 10-year, 4 billion-mile journey through space.

While scientists hailed the achievement as one of the greatest in science, there were widespread concerns the probe would struggle to generate electricity without sunlight.

Read more: Rosetta probe makes historic landing - after a bump or two

However, it has been revealed that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) is showing signs of waking up early as it streaks towards the sun at almost 47,800 mph. The orbiter has continued to collect data, and scientists today have published the findings.

According to the new research, the body of the comet is covered with surprisingly simple organic molecules and surrounded by a changing cloud of gases.

The teams found that the comet’s body, which is about 100 million times more massive than the International Space Station, is covered in dunes and ripples, with little detectable water ice on its surface and generous quantities of hydrocarbons.

Nasa scientists say that because the comet has ice below its surface, when heated it turns directly into gas, escaping to form the atmosphere or the “coma”, which is a halo of evaporated gas and dust which surrounds the nucleus.

The gases released are seen to play an important role in transporting dust across the surface, producing dune-like ripples and boulders with “wind-tails”, while a less easily explicable phenomenon, such as random “goosebumps” across the surface, is seen extending over regions greater than 100 metres.

“We’re taught that comets are made mostly of water ice. For this comet, the coma sometimes contains much more carbon dioxide than water vapour,” said Rosetta scientist Stephen Fuselier, also with Southwest Research Institute.

Dr Dennis Bodewits, from the University of Maryland, US, who led one of several teams reporting latest findings from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission in the journal Science, said: “We are already seeing more activity. Jets are sprouting up everywhere. We’ve been surprised to see how active it is. It already has more jets than many other comets do at perihelion.”

On larger scales, many of the exposed cliff walls are covered in randomly oriented fractures.

Their formation is linked to the rapid heating-cooling cycles that are experienced over the course of the comet’s 12.4-hour day and over its 6.5-year elliptical orbit around the sun.

One prominent and intriguing feature is a 500 metre-long crack, although it is not yet known if it results from stresses in this region.

Overall, the comet’s nucleus seems to be fluffier and more porous than computer models originally predicted. Scientists also are working to figure out if 67P, which is shaped like a rubber duck, actually was two smaller comets that melded together.

Other findings show that the surface of the comet’s sunlit side is covered with simple organic compounds, but very little water ice, indicating that it is dehydrated.

Getting to know #67P â?? new #science results & images just published! Overview: http://t.co/i5VNgSCATp pic.twitter.com/Ak58TB1vog

— ESA Rosetta Mission (@ESA_Rosetta) January 22, 2015

Only the “northern” sunlit face of 67P is currently visible to Rosetta. It makes up more than half the comet’s total surface and is divided into 19 distinct regions, all named after ancient Egyptian deities.

According to scientists, comets like 67P could have delivered the carbon compounds that forms the basis of the earth and helped life to thrive.