APOD: 2026 October 24 – Rosetta’s Selfie

Discover the cosmos!Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Explanation:This Rosetta spacecraft selfiewas snapped on October 7th, 2014. At the time thecomet-chasing spacecraftwas about 472 million kilometers from planet Earth, but only 16 kilometers from the surface ofcomet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Looming beyond the spacecraft near the top of the frame, dust and gas stream away from the comet's curiousdouble-lobed nucleus. Bright sunlight glints off one of Rosetta's 14 meter long solar arrays. In fact, two exposures, one short and one long, were combined to record the dramatic high contrast scene using the CIVA camera system on Rosetta's still-attachedPhilae lander. Its chosenprimary landing sitewas on the visible hemisphere of the smaller lobe of the nucleus. This was the last image from Philae's camera before the lander separated from Rosetta on November 12. Shortly after separation Philae took another image looking back toward the orbiter andbegan its descentto the nucleus of the comet.Tomorrow's picture:dark matters