Comet 67P, which famously hosted the first comet lander in 2014, made its closest approach to Earth on Friday (November 12). The comet, which is now bright enough to be observed with amateur telescopes, will not return to our planet for the next 200 years.
During its closest pass at 7:50 p.m. EST (0050 GMT), Comet 67P was 39 million miles (62.8 million kilometers) from our planet, within the orbit of Mars, according to Astronomy Now.
Nine days earlier, the comet passed perihelion, the closest point to the sun in its elliptical orbit around our star. At this point, the comet is about 112 million miles (181 million km) from the sun.
According to EarthSky, the path of the comet, which sees it completing one orbit around the sun every six and a half years, will now begin to diverge from our planet, and the celestial snowball won’t pass close again until the year 2214. So now is the best time for skywatchers to take a look. tried it and pointed their telescope at the comet. It can be found near Pollux, the brightest star in the constellation Gemini, EarthSky said.
Comet 67P came into the international media spotlight in 2014, when a European mission called Rosetta began orbiting an icy object after a 10-year journey through the solar system. Rosetta orbited the comet closely for more than two and a half years, after making detailed measurements and observations of the comet’s surface and its surroundings.
This sky map shows where Comet 67P will be in the night sky, as seen from New York City at 11:30 p.m. local time on November 12, 2021.
The hallmark of the mission was the landing of a smaller spacecraft called Philae, which was carried by Rosetta. The December 2014 landing was the comet’s first, but it didn’t happen without a hitch. On touchdown first, Philae bounced twice and ended up in a much more inconvenient location than the scientists had chosen for it. The crash was later linked to the failure of two harpoons designed to attach the lander to the comet on first contact.
Unfortunately, Philae settled under a cliff where her solar panels didn’t see the sun. After two days, the probe ran out of power and fell asleep. He woke briefly in June 2015 when the comet’s angle with respect to the sun changed.
The Rosetta and Philae missions made Comet 67P the most studied comet. Scientists are still sifting through the treasure trove of data the mission provided.
At the end of its mission, the Rosetta orbiter made an emergency landing on the comet’s surface, taking more photos and measurements up close. That means a duck-shaped snowball (the odd shape that became one of the mission’s most famous discoveries) is now speeding away from the sun with two defunct man-made passengers.
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