Rosetta ’s mission finished last September , but astronomers are still regain incredible hooey in the range and information we ’ve received . The tardy discovery is an unexpected visual sense for a comet : dunes . If there are sand dune , there also must be tip . But how is this possible when comets do n’t have an ambience that allows them to produce dim enough winds ?
To investigate this , researchers from the Pierre - and - Marie - Curie University ( UPMC ) in France studied photo of Comet 67P / Churyumov - Gerasimenko to seek andmodelhow these dunes formed .
They find that while comets lack dense enough winds to produce dunes , they do expel a lot of gas due to being inflame up by the Sun . The researchers delved into this further and came up with a originative musical theme : They pattern the outgassing of the comet .
The written report , published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , estimates that the outgassing on the Sun - lit side of the comet creates a tenuous atmosphere and a pressure difference between the Clarence Day side and the night side of 67P. The pressure is at least 100,000 times watery than Earth ’s , but since the gravity of the comet is so low , the tedious wind can constitute dunes .
The computer exemplar designed by the investigator include how the grain of dust that make up the control surface of the comet stick to each other and also how they might interact with the ambience . Their foretelling pair well with the observations from Rosetta .
The researchers think this approach could help astronomers understand how the smallest bodies in the Solar System are eroded by both external and internal cognitive process .
Rosetta was a delegacy by theEuropean Space Agencythat studied the comet for over two years . The spacecraft even exhaust a lander in November 2014 , which crashlanded on the comet inSeptember 2016 .
67P ( leave behind ) and a close - up picture of the comet ( rightfield ) . The sand dune are highlighted in the red oval . ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA
