The Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as seen by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft on July 30, 2015. The comet made its closest approach to the sun, called perihelion, on Aug. 13.
After more than a year in orbit around a comet, the European Rosetta spacecraft and its icy dance partner are hitting a huge milestone: their closest approach to the sun.
The Rosetta and its target, , reach perihelion today (Aug. 13), when the comet's 6.5-year orbit brings it within 114.9 million miles (185 million kilometers) of the sun.
Activity is already exploding on Comet 67P. In late July, in the space of less than half an hour. And because it takes about a month for the comet to get its warmest, this means that activity is expected to peak in a few short weeks. []
"The key to the is that it is there for the long haul. It is there to watch and observe changes in the comet over time, with the same suite of instruments, as opposed to a flyby — or maybe different missions having flybys at different times with different instruments," said Joel Parker, an interdisciplinary scientist on the mission. He is a research astronomer and director at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Rosetta arrived in orbit around Comet 67P on Aug. 6, 2014, nearly 10 years after launching into space. In November of last year, the orbiter's small to study the object's surface.
Rosetta is the first spacecraft to orbit a comet and also the first to drop a small probe, the , on a comet's surface. Among other findings, the Rosetta mission revealed that the type of water on the comet is different than that of Earth, meaning that comets like 67P . The spacecraft also detected organics, a building block to life on Earth, and possibly across the universe.
Comet brightnessSurprising Comet Discoveries by Rosetta and Philae (Infographic)]
As Rosetta observes 67P from up close, the spacecraft will see how much gas is coming out, what dust the gas is dragging out and how big the gas particles are, Parker said. Weissman added that these particles could be a centimeter (0.4 inches) across or larger, which is big enough for the comet's imaging instruments to resolve the individual particles and potentially, track their movements.
The team will also be observing how the solar wind, the constant stream of gas from the sun, interacts with the comet's surface and causes changes, Weissman said. The researchers will additionally watch how the coma of the comet - the dusty envelope around its nucleus - flexes when the solar wind hits it.
Editor's note: The European Space Agency will host a Google hangout at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) today to celebrate Rosetta and Comet 67P at perihelion. You can follow that event live here:
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