Comet 67P’s Tail to enlarge by Mid-August
Scientists have revealed that the tail of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is growing and is likely to attain its largest size by mid-August.
Comet 67P will reach perihelion on August 13. The comet will go closest to the Sun that time along its orbit. The Rosetta probe of the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently orbiting the comet.
Four months from now, the comet will grab a place between the orbits of Earth and Mars some 185 million kilometers from the Sun. The gradual evolution of the comet will be monitored by Rosetta as it forms its coma. The probe started orbiting the comet on August 2014 and had put a lander, Philae, on its surface on November 12.
However, the lander has gone missing since then. ESA is optimistic that perihelion will help the dormant probe to wake up by providing enough sunlight to its solar panel to reactivate it.
Scientists have also revealed that no threat will be posed by the dramatic expansion of the coma over the next few months to the orbiting Rosetta probe, as most of the material comprising the coma will be ice and dust.
Coma's formation is attributable to a situation when the comet passes close to the Sun on its highly elliptical orbit. The nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet is called coma.
With the warming in the comet, sublimation of its ice starts or ice changes from solid to gas without involving the liquid phase.
Streams of dust are carried into space by these escaping gases. The comet's fuzzy atmosphere, or coma, is created by these as they come together to slowly expand.
A spectacular montage of 18 images has also been released by the ESA to show the comet's activity from many different angles.