ESA Science & Technology - Comet regions

The OSIRIS cameras on Rosetta acquired images of the northern hemisphere of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since arrival in August 2014. Starting in May 2015, the southern hemisphere became illuminated and was imaged.

In total, twenty-six geological regions have been identified on 67P/C-G. These have been named after ancient Egyptian deities. Regions on the small lobe, sometimes referred to as the 'head' of the comet, are named after Egyptian goddesses (Anuket, Bastet, Hathor, Hatmehit, Ma’at, Maftet, Neith, Nut, Serqet, Wosret), while regions on the large lobe, or 'body' of the comet, are named after gods (Anhur, Anubis, Aker, Apis, Ash, Aten, Atum, Babi, Bes, Geb, Imhotep, Khepry, Khonsu, Seth). The two regions on the neck of the comet are named after the Nile gods, Hapi and Sobek.

This image, taken with the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera, shows regions in the comet's southern hemisphere.

Further details can be found in "Regional surface morphology of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta/OSIRIS images: The southern hemisphere" by M.R. El-Maarry et al., accepted for publication in A&A, 2016.

This image was updated on 3 March 2017. The new image corresponds to the correct version as published in a corrigendum to the original paper. For details see here.