Rosetta's camera takes the first color image of its comet
If you thought the comet where Philae recently touched down (multiple times) was steel gray in color, we've got news for you -- it's actually a juicy red-brown. Despite the success of the orbiting Rosetta probe, it launched in 2004 so its camera doesn't have the latest tech. As a result, all images of the Manhattan-sized rock have been strictly gray-scale so far. But an upcoming research paper has revealed new images using the full spectrum of Rosetta's OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera. The image appears blurry because each color slice was shot from a slightly different angle as Rosetta transited around the comet.
As pointed out by Sploid, Rosetta used the same camera to take a stunning image of Mars when it slingshot past the red planet on its way to Comet 67P. The authors of the paper (from ESA and German Aerospace center) said that they'll also release higher-resolution, albeit darker images on December 18th. Meanwhile, Reddit user IG-94 cleaned up the image in Photoshop as shown below.
