Europe's Rosetta comet-chaser satellite on Aug. 6 arrived at its destination - a comet some 405 million kilometers from Earth - and began returning surprising images and data as it begins an 18-month in-depth study of the comet on its annual approach toward the sun. Nearly 10.5 years after its launch and more than six months after it was reawakened following a 31-month hibernation, Rosetta closed to its planned 100-kilometer distance from Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko and immediately began to send images and data from inside the still-modest gas and dust cloud being thrown off by the comet. It took the 20-nation European Space Agency's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, several hours to process the images sent by the 35-kilogram, 4-megapixel Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) camera. The data flow was no more than 70 kilobits per second over 405 million kilometers.
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