.@elakdawalla Contact binary? Anvil? Boot? No, the morphology is clear: Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a rubber duckie. pic.twitter.com/AqtsXqQtVj
— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) July 15, 2014
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)
- 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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