Comet 67P - Neck

Animation showing the behaviour of water-ice observed in the neck region of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between 1 August 2014 and 10 February 2015 by Rosetta’s VIRTIS instrument, when the comet-Sun separation decreased from 542 million km to 352 million km.. The blue regions indicate the presence of ice in the uppermost surface layer; red shows no ice; and grey indicates portions of the comet that were in shadow. The animation shows the ice abundance at each time during the comet’s 12.4 hour day, such