![The first picture taken by a spacecraft landing on the surface of a comet [12 November 2014]](https://preview.redd.it/9qy95errrz9d1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=fdb598bb7d8ef20f8533b20cf4f8821b345c97a9)
Comet 67-P is approx 4.3 by 4.1 km and orbits from just inside the orbit of Mars to just outside the orbit of Jupiter.
The first picture taken by a spacecraft landing on the surface of a comet [12 November 2014]
ImageAnd we have ketchup. We are all on a rock hurtling through space and and some of that rock eventually started doing some things, and then it started thinking about things, and it made more things, over and over and one thing led to another and then we created ketchup. And my son will throw a tantrum if it isn't on the table at every meal.
Even more beautiful is that our universe may form the structure of what is the equivalent of a single sub-atomic particle in a much larger universe, which makes up an even larger universe. But zoom in and I fucking mailed my Amazon package to my mom instead of me.
“Why did you order a flashlight honey? You know you could have just used your phone. I think this is a cheap knock off too, they can’t even spell flash right.”
LOL
Thanks for this. I needed it.
🤣🤣
That’s how my step daughter was/is. I’ve since seen other kids the same way with the ketchup. I’ve nick named them “ketchup babies “
it’s the absurd amount of sugar that’s in it. i was a ketchup baby myself. my nannies would have to hide ketchup packets from me because i would chew on them until that sweet red nectar oozed out
To me that’s incredible. Only because this was unheard of when I was growing up. It seems to have become a thing during my kids time, like the 90s I think.
I think of this often and it really, REALLY, is a fucking shame. Humans are capable of endless, unimaginable amounts of good things... if we as a species could put all our energies towards that instead of being destructive (to Earth and each other). When you think about it, it's a crying shame. Ugh.
If you keep thinking about it your mind will melt. Make sure to take a break and pet a dog
There's no money in peace, according to them
I know, just think of all the things we could kill out in the universe!
Ive come to the conclusion that society is just mass hysteria.
Wait until you discover that the world you live is nothing like it has been presented to you. If you think your mind is blown now, you are in for a rude awakening.
What do you mean?? 😯
...and you can't experience them without being inside, constantly (spaceship/habitat/spacesuit). Imagine not being truly outside for the rest of your life.
That’s going to take focus and commitment. Something that we have to demand of our leaders who are controlled by people who benefit from us fighting each other.
Too many lights to properly see the stars for way more folks than ever.
Sad truth unfortunately
Killing wach Other keeps Population in Check... WE still live in a society where we let people starve to death ... Or American where they let you die cause u cant Play Insulin lol
I wish we'd turn off the night lights so we could see the dang stars...
Doesn't help with the increasing light pollution.
It truly is unfortunate how we forget the stunning wonder that is constantly above us. I once went to the desert once and saw the sky on a clear night and it was the most breathtaking thing I had ever seen. I hope I can do it again some day.
This has been what I keep telling people, unfortunately the places with the most people have the least visibility when it comes to stars due to light pollution...
I think people get so caught up in our day to day lives to much and forget how small and insignificant we all really are in the grand scheme of things.
Man, every where is just god damn rocks
YEA BUT OPs MOM IS A GAS GIANT!
What’s weird is that there appears to be little rocks and even gravel. How’d that form without any form of erosion?
Little rocks form the same way big rocks do in space: accretion over very long periods of time of the heavy elements created in stars. Those elements are spread when a star dies and explodes. Not all stars do so but enough do that over very long periods of time, rocky objects accumulate in space.
Big rocks can also become little rocks when those smash into each other.
Straight up shitload of rocks just making moves into nowhere at unimaginable speeds
Everywhere just ROCKS. *guitar riff*
Truly incredible feat of what humanity can do. Too bad we are just fucked up as society
Honestly though, the amount we can accomplish but are so blinded by greed is insane.
it's too late for us now. we are becoming the extinction event.
Extinction for the average folk. The Capitalist and Political elite will find a way to save themselves or at least their own personal DNA.
I don’t know about that. But maybe. I like to still have hope
Where brother will kill brother for a grain of overcooked rice.
That could mean I'm living at the absolute pinnacle of human existence.
And religion.
We care about other planet but ruin our own
Im sure some capitalist right now is drooling how he can make money on it in order to buy another super yacht
Wasted potential, I say
It reminds us how incredibly vast and mysterious our universe is
The craziest part is: we’re appart of that.
Makes those wacky Star Trek sets almost seem plausible!!
I was just thinking it looks like Kirk is about to fistfight a Gorn there!
I was immediately suspicious when the Gorn had a fist to fight with.
Central casting for Star Trek aliens was pretty weak - with the notable exception of Tribbles.
Would be weird to live on that thing, how would you even tell one day from another? Do they spin around in a cock-a-doodle fashion due to their higgledy-piggledy shape?
Higgeldy piggeldy! I love that 😁
Yes
That comet has so many stories to tell. It is a time capsule.
Day 1: I just formed. Happy happy.
Day 1.000.000: Some Mofo landed on me. Hope he hops off soon.
Day 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000: Why is it suddenly feeling so warm?
I had to check, if I didn't make any mistakes that's 2.74 sextillion (billion * trillion) years
Kim Kardashian changes hair colors and it goes viral and is breaking news.
Humans send a spacecraft to land on a comet and take pictures and its crickets.
I hate it lol. Scientist should be more celebrated.
People are just too dumb to appreciate it.
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
I also think scientists should be revered.
Scientists are less trusted and respected each year (at least in North America). It's mind boggling.
Someday her great great granddaughter will dye her hair color in real-time from a comet on her YouTube channel.
I remember when this news came out and it was a huge deal. It was on the front page of a few news sites for a few days. But yeah unfortunately mostly forgotten by most people after a month or so.
Kim should do their branding tbh
Do they have a way to convey the scale of what I’m looking at? I can’t tell if this area is the size of a backyard or a valley.
The image is about 2000 feet across from side to side. There's more here:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/final-descent-images-from-rosetta-spacecraft
Don’t want to close my eyes…
Don’t want to fall asleep……
’Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
There’s no weather on that rock to smooth edges
Does anyone know the height of those hills? They’re so rough and un-eroded that I can’t tell if they’re 1m or huge?
Dude below you says the image is 2000ft horizontally
I wonder if there's ghost crabs
Did anyone notice the shell gas station behind those rocks?
I know this is incredible and I find it awe inspiring. But every time I see one of these images my thought is damn that's so normal. It looks like a image taken from the top of a mountain after a long hike.
Arizona
❤️
why is it bright?? is that light from the craft??
Pretty sure this is a colorized version of infrared pictures I've seen go around before. I wanna say this was from a Japanese probe that landed a few years back
Edit: mixed it up with the Japanese probe that landed on the Asteroid. This was from Rosetta, a probe the European Space Agency landed back in 2016
It's bright because the camera was designed to be sensitive enough for that specific environment. All cameras have a range in which they can operate well. This one was very expensive, in part, because it's so highly sensitive, or was prior to the craft impacting the asteroid. It's likely not stull functional but we may never know one way or the other.
Edit: Forgot to put in this link with a lot more detail about the particular camera:
Looks dusty
This is no cave..
Reminds me of Arizona
Sick of these AI images
lol flash on 9000000
How strong is the gravity of the comet? I see there are rocks and gravel just laying on the surface and not floating at the same speed as the comet.
I keep thinking we as a human race are headed towards a climax similar to that of the movie interstellar, albeit I don’t know if we have 5 dimensional beings acting as our guardians…..
Something creepy about this photo is that the light we’re seeing might have been from a very powerful flicker of the rover’s camera flash.
It might have gone back to being pitch black after a split second of light
If the rover used a flash there would be no shadows.
Makes sense. So it must be the sun then, and the dark side must be pitch black and freezing
Yes. But it’s not tidally locked to anything so it will rotate and have diurnal effects. They would have had to time this image to be in daytime.
This is just some place in a offshoot canyon in Idaho
Took me 10 years to see this- thank you Reddit.
Exactly as I’d hoped it would look. Mind boggling
I have a few questions:
Why is there so much light? Pointing at the sun i imagine?
I see lots of smaller rocks. Why are they nit floating away? Is there so much mass in a 4.1 by 4.3km rock to have enough gravity
almost the same question as 2 but how can the aircraft/spacecraft thingy land on this and not fly/float away?
Thank you in advance!
Gravity is my question also. Does it produce enough to keep that debris on the surface. Clearly it does but how.
I thought from descriptions of the trails cast off them by the sun’s radiation that they were icy balls not rock. Are there different types of comets?
Why is there piles of dust and fragmented rock all sitting on the surface?
It's in open space, the comet isn't big enough for gravity. Howcome the debris isn't floating?
Real question, hopefully someone who knows about physics can answer.
Honest question. Why can we see stars in the sky on this photo but not in the moon?
What you see are particles thrown up by the landing thrust, but they seem like far away stars.
Thank you
Moon-lander-men say that the black stary sky goes all the way down to the horizon on the moon, emphasising its deadness. They all return to earth and view it as eden.
it looks like the set for the Power Rangers fight on the moon, for the 10th anniversary
Wait so there’s gravity on a comet or how does it have all those pebbles just sitting there motionless but I always thought comets are moving at the speed of light or whatever lmao just seems wild
Not the speed of light, but about 135,000km/hr, which is pretty fast.
However, it's also moving through the void of space, there's no wind, nothing to affcet it or anything on it so even small rocks on it are undisturbed by anything.
Weird the pebbles don’t fly off.
Ok I’m no physicist but there’s a very tiny amount of gravitational force holding them on and no other force to blow them off.
Not completely true. There is pressure exerted from the light(photons) due to momentum. Also known as radiation pressure. It is not significant on earth due to air and massive gravitational force. When comets come near sun, the surface evaporates. The dust particles are subjected to the radiation pressure.
Not sure if serious comment.
User deleted comment
5d
I was thinking the same thing
Come on, guys. When is seome going to sweep that up?
Neat
I’m going to steal the comet
Spooky
Are the background dots galaxies or stars?
I'm pretty sure in this image, those are just bits of dust the camera picked up. That image was taken with the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera. There's more about that camera here:
https://www.mps.mpg.de/en/rosetta/osiris
Here's a page with good details about this specific image:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/final-descent-images-from-rosetta-spacecraft
Thanks!
Looks like ohio
Can’t be. No soy beans there.
Looks like a backdrop from Red Dwarf. Absolutely amazing picture!
Where's the spacecraft in the picture? I can't find it
Worst environment imaginable
No way that's Hollywood. Jk. We're amazing humans
Looks like my backyard.
Looks like an album cover if it were used as such.
Amazing
I don’t know what it’s composed of, but looks like earth-like erosion to me.
Doesn't look all that bad there.
Why don't we leave the dang ships/cameras active so we can see stuff when comes back???
This is so bad ass.
Perfect background for a space cowboy scene.
Looks like every comet in cartoons ever.
Life is just a big No Man's Sky
Nevada, Not Arizona. Arizona's rocks are red
If you zoom in, there are what looks like pieces of half buried machinery
Crazy that this asteroid generates enough gravity for the small rubble to stick to it
What caused the erosion in the foreground?
Cool how a talus cone on a comet looks the same on Earth. Fine material at the top, the bigger chunks roll all the way to the bottom.
"I don't want to close my eyes..."
Sending an object however many millions of miles away to land on an object only a few km in size is stunning, especially at the cosmic speeds these objects are traveling at
The gravity on this is so amazing.
Couple of melted blaster rifles there middle right of the photo.
Why arent there stars covering the sky in all directions? I asshmed there would be an amazing display of lights if youre on a comet with no atmosphere and very few lights.
I have a genuine question about the photograph. Are the colours natural or they are added later on? I mean is that how the rock/mountain actually look like on that particular comet? I guess it was a monochrome photo.
Comets are composed primarily of a mixture of water ice, frozen gases (such as carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia), dust, and organic compounds. The nucleus can be described as a “dirty snowball”. So the colours are likely fairly accurate.
I am not disputing colours of any rock or surface of comets in general. All I am asking is if the colours were added by editing the photo or is it a raw image? Because i faintly remember photos being monochrome. And the reason for asking about colour is I feel if there is high saturation of any particular metal on comet 67-P, it will change the colour altogether.
Is the light source from.... the sun or does the spacecraft have its own lights? And wait.... spacecraft???? Makes it sound like their were people inside, I'm so used to hearing unmanned nowadays.
why there is always night in moon Mars etc? there is no sunrise ?
There is a sunrise and sunset, which just makes it go from dark to light. But there is no atmosphere like on earth, which is what makes the sky turn blue.
There is an atmosphere on Mars, the sky is more orange than blue tho.
There is no atmosphere on the Moon (or this rock in the photo).
But you can clearly see day and night on Mars.
How much would one of those rocks be worth if they were sent back to Earth?
Comets are composed of a mixture of water ice, frozen gases (such as carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia), dust, and organic compounds. The nucleus can be described as a “dirty snowball”.
There aren’t any rocks.
I already know that comets aren’t really rocky. What would you refer to the rocky looking lumps in the background?
Wish we had something for scale. It is pretty damn amazing.
😂
It’s insane to me that there seems to be loose rocks all Over it as it it’s a chunk of earth that simply detached from a planet that exploded.
Wasn’t it 10km away when it took that? I imagine it would be very challenging to land on an oblong object with 0.0001G
Kinda disappointing that there are rocks there too
It makes me think of what early human nomads/explorers saw and the awe they must have felt about vastness they just stumbled on.
It also looks like a great place for Palm Springs 2.0.
Comet is flat
I love how humanity can do this. Also that looks like where I camp in Joshua Tree National Park
You landed us on a goddamn iron plate!
Amazing picture
Where diamonds?
The sharpening algorithm smeared the absolute shit out of the details in this image.
Real bad up scaling job.
How amazing it is that you can have rocks just laying there on a 4km object that's hurling though space
Space dirt. Sick 😎
Imagine as an astronaut you had to pee on one of these, and after 5 million years, your pee h2o is the reason for life to start on this comet. And people then started to question the existence, worshipping some gods because of your urgency to pee.
It almost looks like the sea floor
Fake and gay
Just incredible. No only being able to land on a comet, but to transmit a picture of extraordinary detail over such a vast distance
This is just crazy. What amazing things can we do as a society but only in science and usually in space. Here on earth we just kill each other
So sad and true
Why does it look like a road construction crew got started on a widening project near the end of a fiscal year then left?
Looks like Arizona
This is just Arizona at night...
What are the odd 20 years from now will we find out this was staged.
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Still blows my mind we are just walking around alive on a rock ball floating in endless space with countless other gigantic rock balls and weird anomalies
Wish humanity would be less concerned about killing each other and just look up more to the stars