The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe has caught a rare image of dust rising from the Comet 67P’s surface. The image shows an interesting cosmic ‘burp’ of dust and gas caused by its ongoing warming while approaching the sun.

ESA scientists said that the comet-hunting spacecraft caught the rare instance of a dust jet at the moment of its creation.

At present, the comet is four months away from its closest approach to the sun. It has produced many such jets from its sun-facing side, but this latest jet was seen originating from the dark side of the comet. Scientists have called it a valuable opportunity for gathering new understanding of the comet's dynamics.

Holger Sierks from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany said that this was a chance discovery.

Sierks, principle investigator for Rosetta's scientific imaging system known as OSIRIS, added that no one has ever witnessed the wake-up of a dust jet before, and is impossible to plan such an image.

The eruption was captured in two sequential images of the comet, and was seen coming from its shaded underside. Scientists have dubbed this shaded underside as Imhotep after the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom and medicine.

Last week, OSIRIS team-member Carsten Güttler told a meeting European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, that they had a very lucky shot on March 12. He mentioned that they took images just two minutes apart.

He said, “In the first image, at the bottom of the nucleus, you see nothing. In the second image, within two minutes and 10 seconds, a complete jet has formed”.

As per the estimations of the scientists the height of the jet in the image at around 3,000 feet, which suggested that in the two minutes between the images the jet travelled at around 25 feet per second.

Over the last month, the ESA has had to move Rosetta further away from the comet, to a distance of around 60 miles, as dust from a number of the comet's jets confused the star trackers that the spacecraft uses to orient itself.