Science named the rendezvous of the Rosetta spacecraft with Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko as the 2014 breakthrough of the year. Here is the summary:
Science's Breakthrough of the Year is the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In November, Rosetta's lander, named Philae, captured headlines around the world by touching down for the first time on the surface of a comet. Now, the instrument-studded mother ship is keeping pace with the comet as it continues in its orbit, snapping pictures and analyzing the jets of gas that will spew from 67P as the comet nears its closest approach to the sun in August 2015. The information the craft sends back to Earth should give scientists valuable clues to how the solar system formed and where Earth got its chemicals—including the water that makes up an essential component of all known life.
Here are two excerpts from the 19 December 2014 Science article:
Whatever data Philae did manage to return will be significant, not least because 67P is just the seventh place beyond Earth explored by a lander. (Venus, Mars, the moon, Saturn's moon Titan, and two asteroids are the others.) Yet the importance of the landing was largely emotional and symbolic. Mission managers have suggested that 80% of the overall science return would come from Philae's mother ship, Rosetta, which reached the comet in August and has been orbiting it ever since, scrutinizing it from as close as 10 kilometers away. That broader achievement, and the cornucopia of information it is yielding, are what Science is celebrating as 2014's Breakthrough of the Year.
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Much of Rosetta's power comes from its ability to inspect the comet at close range for months on end. The half-dozen or so previous missions to comets were all flybys that were over in hours.
More information can be found on the European Space Agency's web site.
We don’t yet have monographs based on the latest information from Rosetta, but the Rosetta mission was long in the making, and there are works about the plans for the current mission. The mission was approved in 1993, and the launch was originally scheduled for 2003, with the intention to rendezvous with comet 46P Wirtanen; however, the launch was delayed, the opportunity to rendezvous as planned with that comet lost, and when the spacecraft was launched in 2004, it needed a new target. The new target comet has its own LCSH: Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet.
Browsing the Relative Index for "comets" yields two unsubdivided numbers:
Comets T2--993
Comets 523.6
The Table 2 number (T2—993 Meteoroids and comets) is useful only for number building. The number 523.6—the interdisciplinary number for comets—looks promising. In the full record for 523.6 Comets, the Hierarchy box shows that 523.6 is the astronomy number as well as the interdisciplinary number for comets:
The full record for 523.63 Motion and orbits has this class-elsewhere note: "Class motion and orbits of specific comets in 523.64." There is a similar class-elsewhere note at 523.66 Physical phenomena and constitution: "Class physical phenomena and constitution of specific comets in 523.64."
We look at the full record for 523.64 Specific comets. Here is the Hierarchy box:
Only Halley’s comet has its own number (523.642); other specific comets are classed in 523.64. A dissertation about Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet has been classed in 523.64:
The Emission of Large Dust Particles from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Constrained by Observation and Modelling of its Dust Trail.
Two LCSH have been editorially mapped to 523.64 Specific comets:
Hale-Bopp comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet
Here are works about these comets classed in 523.64 Specific comets:
Everybody's Comet: A Layman's Guide to Comet Hale-Bopp
The Comet Hale-Bopp Book: Guide to an Awe-Inspiring Visitor from Deep Space
Radio Observations and Theories of Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet
What about earlier works treating the Rosetta mission? The New Rosetta Targets: Observations, Simulations and Instrument Performances, published in 2004, is summarized as follows:
Includes the papers presented at the workshop on "The New Rosetta targets, observations, simulations and instrument performances", held in Capri, in 2003. This work covers the fields of observations of the Rosetta targets, laboratory experiments and theoretical simulation of cometary processes, and the expected performances of Rosetta experiments.
Rosetta’s ten-year trip to Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet allowed for secondary scientific targets—e.g., flybys of two asteroids—but the table of contents shows a heavy emphasis on comets, some chapters relating to comets in general, many focusing on Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. The table of contents also has much about the special instruments and systems for observing Rosetta’s targets—but it is not limited to instrumentation. This work has been classed in 523.6 Comets. Another version, published in 2011, seems to have the same table of contents, but has been classed in 523.64 Specific comets; probably the classifier felt that there was enough emphasis on the new main target to justify classing by predominance in 523.64 Specific comets.
Another work, Rosetta: ESA's Mission to the Origin of the Solar System, is summarized as follows:
ROSETTA: ESA's Mission to the Origin of the Solar System is partially reprinted, with updates and corrections, from Space Science Reviews journal, Vol. 128/1-4, 2007. This is the first hard cover book on Rosetta to discuss science and instrumentation.
This work has information about Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet but more about the Rosetta instrumentation that could be used for any comet—and yet it is not limited to instrumentation. It has been classed in 523.6 Comets.
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