Previously unreleased imagery from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft reveal ice and dust on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The images were captured on June 1, 2016, over the course of 25 minutes at an altitude of roughly 13 km above the surface of the comet. Comet 67P is a Jupiter-family comet originally from the Kuiper belt and has an orbital period of 6.45 years.
The majority of the “snow” is actually caused by cosmic rays hitting the camera sensor and saturating pixels. These high energy particles pervade the Universe and originate from extrasolar phenomena such as supernovae, galactic nuclei, quasars, and gamma-ray bursts. The Earth ‘s atmosphere protects us from the deleterious effects of cosmic rays.
Source: https://twitter.com/landru79/status/988490703075463168
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