SHANGHAI — Chinese scientists have attributed the sudden movement of a boulder on the surface of a comet to a phenomenon known as the “rocket effect,” which resulted from the asymmetric outburst of volatile ice inside the boulder.
The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, are based on data captured by the European Space Agency”s (ESA) Rosetta mission during its two-year close flyby and observation of the comet 67P from 2014 to 2016.
In 2015, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft detected the boulder shifting approximately 140 meters northward near the comet’s perihelion. A team led by Shi Xian from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed high-resolution images and thermal data, concluding that uneven sublimation…