The Paley lander that made its way through space together with the Rosetta spacecraft will land next month on the nucleus of comet 67P Churyumov-Gardimenko. In the meantime, she and the mother spacecraft are closely examining possible landing sites
The spacecraft that took this photo is about to land on the surface of the comet nucleus in the background. This is an image taken from the Paley spacecraft riding the Rosetta spacecraft and both orbit the comet 67P Churyumov-Gardimenko that Rosetta has spent the last decade on its way to.
The photo was taken from a height of ten kilometers from the surface of 67P Churyumov-Gardimenko, so that the mission planners could soon examine the landing site J located on the small lobe of the comet which is known to consist of two rock blocks - one large and the other smaller connected by a kind of narrow neck.
Two images, one with a short exposure and the other with a longer exposure, were combined to reveal the dynamics of the scene from the bright parts of the solar collectors to the dark comet and the dark protective coating of Rosetta," the European Space Agency said in a statement.
This is a close-up photo after the last selfie the spacecraft took and which was released to the public in September, it was 50 kilometers away from the comet's surface. Paley is expected to land for the first time in history on a comet nucleus next month. The Rosetta mother spacecraft will continue to closely monitor the comet as it approaches the closest point in its orbit around the Sun, between the orbits of Mars and Earth.
Today, October 15, mission managers will decide whether to approve Site J as the landing site or not. They will have at their disposal the information received by the spacecraft's instruments from its current height of about ten kilometers.
