Rosetta's last comet pic

Europe's Rosetta probe has finally crashed (albeit very slowly) into comet 67P, and has managed to send back a close-up image of the surface before it died. comet No, the probe wasn't drunk The somewhat-blurry image was taken about 50 metres off the surface of the comet using the OSIRIS wide-angle camera to a scale of 5 mm …

[Anonymous Coward]

Well done!

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[Cardinal]

Re: Well done!

I think the fuller (and quite apt) quote is:

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

(Matthew 25:21)

[Mark 85]

Sad in many ways...

I think that some of these plucky machines need a decent burial or a blaze of glory type ending... not a crash.

[Richard 12]

Re: Sad in many ways...

67P is now forever the last resting place of Rosetta and Philae, and will remain so until it finally disintegrates.

It may even slowly subsume them, we don't really know.

That seems a fitting burial to me.

[emeterio]

Revised image distance

The picture was taken at about 20m from the surface.

Originally it was stated that the image was take from higher up, but this is because the distance was worked out from predicted impact time. This has now been recalculated taking into account the actual data. This is still being revised...

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/Rosetta_s_last_image

[Bronek Kozicki]

Re: Revised image distance

No surprise it's little blurry - I am willing to bet the camera had fixed focus at "infinity"

[beardman]

meanwhile...

prominent musician Vangelis has released (23 Sep) an album dedicated to this endeavour and named it (surprise, surprise) "Rosetta"!

[Joeman]

Their final resting place - just until some internet billionaire decides he wants them on his wall as space safari trophies and commissions a probe to go and fetch them for him... you know its going to happen soon - collecting old space hardware will become the billionaire equivalent of big game hunting!