Simulated view of Rosetta spying an infant bow shock at the comet

This animation shows a simulated view of ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft at its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, on 24 February 2016. The comet is represented in grey in the left-hand frame, while the small cyan satellite represents the simulated Rosetta spacecraft. The simulation reconstructs the plasma conditions when Rosetta spotted an infant bow shock in the process of ‘unforming’: this infant bow shock can be seen as the sweeping red-yellow curve. The colours show the proton density for the region –