Rosetta sees its shadow, six more weeks of science

DARMSTADT, Germany, March 3 (UPI) -- When subjects or scenes, trends or movements, get played out -- so to speak -- discussions often turn meta. Rosetta's scientific mission, of course, is still far from over. But the European Space Agency's mission has dominated the headlines of science pages for several months now.

So maybe it was a nod to its ubiquity -- and the usual course of cultural matters -- that Rosetta got a bit self-referential recently. The probe's OSIRIS narrow-angle camera caught a glimpse of Rosetta's shadow on the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the comet it's been orbiting for months.

And now, astronomers, scientists and other interested parties all over the world are looking at a picture of Rosetta looking at an outline of itself. The image was captured during Rosetta's flyby last month -- the closest the probe as come to the surface of Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

During the a portion of the flyby, the comet, probe and sun were all in alignment -- allowing for the shot of Rosetta's shadow while minimizing the shadows of the comet's geologic features.

These circumstances allowed for existential drama, but also proved scientifically valuable, as it allowed Rosetta's cameras to better capture the comet's reflective characteristics.

"Images taken from this viewpoint are of high scientific value," Holger Sierks, leader of the OSIRIS science team, said in a recent press release. "This kind of view is key for the study of grain sizes."

The image feature Rosetta's shadow shows a portion of comet located between two regions called Imhotep and Ash -- on the far end of the larger of the rubber-duck-shaped comet's two lobes.

The probe is currently orbiting the comet at a much higher altitude, studying the composition of Churyumov-Gerasimenko's corona.