Report about landslide on the comet's surface was published in Nature Astronomy magazine this Tuesday. In 2015 Rosetta spacecraft had taken images when the cliffside collapse created about 2000 tons of rubble.
Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team. The spatial scale of the image is 12 cm/pixel. The white arrows show the new sharp edge after the collapse.
Even at the comet's extremely low gravity, more than 90% settled at the foot of precipice, and leftover was ejected into the space, and was seen as a jet of dust.
Image: Nature
Researchers expected the collapse, after in July 2015 they have seen first large plume of dust, ejected from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. They traced the jet's origin to the place named Aswan on the surface.
Five days later, the spacecraft's high resolution camera observed fresh, sharp and bright edge on the Aswan cliff, where the fracture was seen before.
This bright spot was six times brighter then the comet's dark, dusty surface - it was icy insides of the comet.
Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Rosetta mission was terminated on Sept 30, 2016, when the spacecraft was sent to the comet's surface. The last images were taken from the height of 51 centimeters.
On the comet, the Rosetta mission found organic molecules, the building blocks of life, thus supporting the theory that comets helped spark life on Earth by delivering organic materials when they slammed into our young planet. Water, on the other hand, was unlikely to have come from comets of 67P's type, the mission concluded
For further reading: http://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-017-0092