Spinning SPACE DUCK is comet-chasing Rosetta probe's PREY

New images captured by the Rosetta comet-chaser reveal that its target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, may be a “contact binary” – a class of object with two distinct and different segments. The European Space Agency (ESA) has been kind enough to provide an animated GIF of the comet to show off the two distinct parts of the …

[Mark 85]

It may look like a duck, will it swim like one?

[boba1l0s2k9]

Human progress

What a world we live in that we can capture an animated picture of a space duck and distribute it world wide. F*ck you Neanderthals.

[LaeMing]

Re: Human progress

Well, according to recent genetic studies, at some point we did exactly that.

[DiViDeD]

the Age of Miracles & Wonders

Isn't it bloody amazing that we can do something like this? Rendezvous with a comet (in SPAAAAACE, no less), send pictures back, analyse at a distance of many thousands of kilometres, and yet still no flying car.

But some days I can do without the flying car when I see stuff like this.

Go ESA! (as I believe our leftpondian cousins would expect us to say at a time like this)

[Wzrd1]

Re: the Age of Miracles & Wonders

If it's all the same to you, I'll pass on the flying cars.

People can't drive them on the ground, I'd hate to see what a crash in mid-air would bring raining down on my roof.

[mr.K]

Re: the Age of Miracles & Wonders

I have never understood the claim that we don't have flying cars. We have had them for years. They are called helicopters.

[willi0000000]

duck

the .GIF makes it look like the "duck" is spinning quite rapidly but i checked with the ESA site and it rotates about twice per day. this should make finding a safe place to set down the lander a lot easier than it looks. not that anything about looping all around the inner solar system for ten years to chase down a 5km comet is easy.

i hope this little spacecraft has the luck and construction wizardry that went into building and flying the Voyager probes. it's got at least another two years to run and there's potential for damage from outgassing events and about a million other things that could go wrong. here's hoping that the very best builders, engineers, flyers, scientists and yes, even a few boffins are on the crew that did this.

but, hot damn, a probe rendezvousing with a comet and setting down a probe to actually sample the surface! WOW, just wow!

beer is for all you rightponders who gave us this little gem.

[being a leftponder (or stupid Murrican to some) hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for the ESA but then i've never chanted anything in my life]

[Graham Newton]

Re: duck

Thanks -- pint of Lager please.

[John Smith 19]

Does look very lumpy.

I think at this range it's impossible to say is it a single piece or will it resolve into a pair with clear space between them.

Only time will tell.

Still a pretty major achievement out in deep deep space.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Does look very lumpy.

It looks like something made in art school for kids in papier-maché. Clearly a single piece.

A small "clear space" would not be viable, these things are pushed and pulled by their environment.

[phuzz]

Re: Does look very lumpy.

The image has had a lot of processing done to get it to that state, it could still conceivably be two separate lumps, we'll just have to wait until Rosetta is a bit closer.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's no duck...

It's a space station.

[Bob Wheeler]

Just an idea but.....

67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a bit of a mouthful, how about we re-name it to something like Howard?

But still, beers all round chaps.

[zflynn3]

If it the "missing" waist was/were indeed ice, it still would leave some puzzling questions: how did ice only form there in the middle and why? Without that information-or strong evidence to support an argument-the ice hypothesis has no value other than vague speculation.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's no duck....

...it's a giant space turd.

Hopefully it's previous 'owner' is nowhere around.

Aliens!!!!

[DuncanL]

Very small rocks...

Tis witchcraft I tell you.

[PassiveSmoking]

Just listenin' to the Space Duck

Such a majestic creature.

Mine's the one with the Team Fourstar logo on the back.

[0laf]

Are there any potential space witches to weigh this against?

[Whiskers]

Sphinx

Too big for a duck. Sphinges are known for being mysterious big and rocky.

[k9gardner]

Far more likely, as ancient astronaut theorists suggest, is that it ~is~ a rubber ducky, onto which significant amounts of cosmic debris have accumulated due to the high gravitational force known to be exhibited by rubber duckies moving at high velocity through space.

[Robert Helpmann??]

Rubber Duckie

Rubber Duckie, you're the one \ You make flying through the vacuum of space lots of fun...

Tux, 'cause that's as close to a duck as we have ==>