That would explain its strange shape, which to some reminds some of a rubber ducky or a giant peanut. As the study authors explain in the journal Nature , there are strong indications that the comet examined by ESA's Rosetta mission is the result of the merging of two independent bodies. For this to happen, these objects (probably also comets) had to go at a very low speed, a few meters per second.
It is a phenomenon of which there is no precedent in the Solar System, with an ultraviolent past. "It's a beautiful love story," said Matteo Massironi, a member of the team that controls the Osiris optical system, with which the observations have been made.
Scientists have reached this conclusion after making a 3D model of the layers that, like an onion skin, make up the comet's structure. Thus they have been able to detect two different patterns , impossible to arise spontaneously in a single primitive body.
Previously, data sent by the Rosetta spacecraft has revealed other peculiarities of Comet 67P, such as that it is half as dense as water and that 80% of its volume is hollow.
