China News Service, Beijing, October 29 (Reporter Sun Zifa) The internationally renowned academic journal "Nature" recently published a research paper on planetary science, identifying the "Philae" lander on Comet 67P/Churyumov- The second landing point when the surface of Gerasimenko (67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko) bounced-"skull-top ridge", and analyze the ice-bearing block of Philae at the landing point The imprint left on it can be used to understand the strength of the newly exposed ice layer during landing.
According to reports, on November 12, 2014, the Philae lander landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and bounced twice during landing, and finally stopped in the Abydos area. Under a hanging wall.
Although the first and third landing sites have been determined before, the location of the second landing site has not been known.
Based on a new landing trajectory analysis, the corresponding author of the paper, Laurence O'Rourke, the European Space Agency in Madrid, Spain, and his colleagues set out to determine the second landing site of the Philae lander.
They compared and analyzed the pre-landing and post-landing images taken on the orbit around the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on the "Rosetta" spacecraft, and observed that there was a ridge on the surface. The characteristics of the two adjacent boulders have changed, which can only be explained by the existence of Philae.
They determined that the Philae lander stayed at this location for nearly two minutes and made four different surface contacts.
In the process, it exposed the water ice inside the rock.
At the third contact point, the researchers observed a mark of about 0.25 meters left by Philae on the ice.
From this, the author of the paper calculated that the strength of the ice in the rock is very low-less than 12 Pascals, which is softer than the light snow that has just fallen.
They concluded that these findings have given people insight into the mechanical processes required to collect ice samples in future comet missions.
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