Rosetta: 'Goosebumps' on 'space duck' hint at comet formation (BBC)
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Scientists working on Europe's Rosetta probe, which is tracking Comet 67P, say they may have found evidence for how such icy objects were formed.
New pictures of the surface reveal a lumpy texture in places that researchers speculate could have been the body's original building blocks.
Their appearance means they are being dubbed "goosebumps", which is a bit of fun given the comet's duck-like shape.
But if this interpretation is correct, it represents a major discovery.
"We still have to model this, but I think they really could be pointing back in time to the early days of the Solar System - to the formation of the building blocks of cometary nuclei," said imaging team leader Holger Sierks from the Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany.
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more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30931445
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current#SpecialIssue
