Rosetta’s Comet Looks Like a Rubber Ducky or Marshmallow Peep

The European Space Agency(ESA) got a closer look at Comet Churymov-Gerasimenko that their Rosetta spacecraft is approaching and discovered it’s a contact binary – two differently-sized objects in close contact. That’s an exciting discovery, but as UC Berkeley astronomer Alex Parker pointed out it looks like a rubber ducky and that’s arguably more exciting.

Personally, I think it looks more like a marshmallow Peep, but I’m not a planetary astronomer, so I’m willing to defer to Parker’s expert opinion in this matter.

Of course, knowing that it looks like a rubber ducky, there’s someone I can think of that may have just developed a sudden intense interest in the Rosetta mission:

(via The Planetary Society)

Previously in the adventures of Rosetta

• Philae, the lander Rosetta is carrying, is getting impatient in this animation
• Rosetta released a GIF of the comet earlier this month
• And she first spotted the comet back in March

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Glen Tickle

Glen is a comedian, writer, husband, and father. He won his third-grade science fair and is a former preschool science teacher, which is a real job.

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