Public Star Night – Eric Schindhelm – Rosetta Mission
The Rosetta Mission: How to Catch a Comet (Eric Schindhelm)
In August 2014 the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Rosetta spacecraft arrived at the comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, providing an unprecedented look at a remnant of the early solar system. The Philae lander made the first touch down ever on the surface of a comet, and the Rosetta orbiter followed the comet for an additional two years in its orbit around the Sun. As the comet made its closest approach to the Sun, the instruments onboard Rosetta studied the composition of the nucleus and the evolution of the coma. In this talk we will explore the relevance of comets to the formation of the solar system, how Rosetta rendezvoused with the comet, and the exciting observations taken and scientific discoveries yet to come. Eric Schindhelm worked at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) as a liason between scientists on NASA’s UV spectrograph (Alice) team and ESA’s Mission & Science Operations teams
