Water ice in the Imhotep region of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Water ice in the Imhotep region of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the objective of the Rosetta mission, has a dark surface that reflects only approximately five percent of the incident sunlight. However, comets are composed of predominantly water ice. Rosetta has only detected reflective material in a few locations so far. In two places in the Imhotep region, scientists have been able to show that water ice is exposed using data acquired by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) instrument. The width of this image section is around two kilometres.
