Scientists discovered a huge funnel with a length of more than 200 yards (or 183 meters) in diameter, which is two lengths of a football field and commensurate with its deeply damaged surface, which was also studied by the orbiting spacecraft Rosette.
"And the most interesting thing about this funnel is that you can directly see it. It's just some kind of madness. We have the opportunity to see absolutely every smallest detail of the relief," said University of Maryland scientist Dennis Bodevits in an interview for Discovery news. .
Almost all the funnels have a rounded cylindrical shape with fairly sharp edges. At least one of the 18 funnels has steep walls. Some of them are still active, spewing jets of dust from the walls and bottom of the hole.
"The fact that we found a funnel was a complete surprise for us," said Paul Weisman, a physicist in space, from NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory in California.
Scientists believe that these "pits" are the craters that formed when the remnants of other comets collided with it. The nucleus of the comet is about half of the solid substance, similar to ice, the rest is hollow.
The comet known as "67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko" is considered to be a "pile of rubble" of a boulder-size (huge), since it represents pieces of silicates and organic substances that have joined and formed the body of the comet. All the dust from the craters over time space leaves, and, I believe scientists, it causes a gradual expansion of the pits.
“The comet’s surface will soon have a“ ragged ”structure with many funnels, while the inside surface will be fairly smooth,” says Jean-Baptiste-Vincent of the Max-Planck Institute in Germany for solar system research.
“I think these are funnels. I can’t say for sure, but I am sure that they are,” reports Discovery News, Weissman (the scientist was not involved in the study).
“The mass that the funnel has splashed is still not enough to completely clear the crater,” he said. “Besides, if you look around the space around the pit, it’s impossible to say for sure that the discarded garbage does not return back to the funnel. So what leaves these grooves? I don’t think someone can give a different explanation of how they formed. I’m sure that this is a good answer about collisions with foreign objects, but we don’t know for sure. "
Similar features of the holes were found on the comet Wild-2 (from the English W / Vild-2) and Tempel-1 (Tempel-1), which were also studied by Stardust and Deep NASA space probes. However, the funnels were so deep as on comet 67P, studied by the European spacecraft "Rosette" from August 2014. “We believe these craters are older. They are already eroded and full of debris,” says Bodewitts.
Based on the size and location of the funnel at 67P, physicists suspect the possibility of some changes in the deeper layers of the comet, namely at a level of several hundred yards below the main surface.
So far, scientists have not been able to get a chemical analysis from the inner as well as from the extreme layers of the funnel. Not a single satellite has landed closer than the Rosette, but a new attempt to launch the Philae satellite is planned for November. Every effort will be made to establish the best connection between the two devices. The new descent satellite can resume scientific operations for the next seven months without interrupting battery life.
"I would like to see how something is planted in the funnel, explores the very surface, if, of course, we can engage in geology there, exploring different layers and structures of new matter. By the way, the same option was proposed to study the craters of Mars and the Moon "- says Bodewitts.
