Flight over Abydos valley

Rosetta’s Philae lander touched down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014 and made multiple contacts with the surface before arriving at its final resting place in a location named Abydos.

This video presents a flyover of the Abydos valley including Philae’s second touchdown location in a region nicknamed ‘Skull-top ridge’, as viewed on a high-resolution Digital Terrain Model reconstructed from OSIRIS imagery. The Abydos valley is a boulder-strewn location with the touchdown area located on the edge of a hill-like feature that towers 30 m above the valley at its maximum point.

The flyover begins with the skull-top boulders circled, before the viewer flies towards them, and make a 360º flight around. Although the fine details of Philae’s interaction with touchdown site two are not shown in this shape model, the ice contained inside the crevice itself is clearly visible.

For orientation, at 45 s, skull-top ‘hat’ is to the left of the crevice, and ‘skull face’ is to the right. Skull-top hat has a length of 5 m and a maximum height of 4 m. The skull face boulder is over 6 m in length. Both boulders are about 2.5 m wide. Although the boulders have a distinct shape from the initial fly in perspective, the challenge in finding them from other viewing points becomes clear when seen from other perspectives.

See also How Philae left its mark during touchdown two infographic for additional context.

Credits: Video prepared by and music composed by Gerhard Paar (Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH); Analysis: O'Rourke et al (2020)