Rosetta's comet releasing two glasses of water per second in space

Rosetta's comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is releasing the equivalent of two small glasses of water into space every second, even at a cold 583 million kilometres from the Sun.

Sam Gulkis, the instrument's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, USA said that they always knew that they would see water vapour out gassing from the comet, but they were surprised at how early they detected it.

The first observations of water vapour streaming from the comet were made by the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter, or MIRO.

Gulkis asserted that at this rate, the comet would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in about 100 days, but, as it got closer to the Sun, the gas production rate will increase significantly.

Matt Taylor, ESA's Rosetta project scientist said that their comet was coming out of its deep-space slumber and beginning to put on a show for Rosetta's science instruments.

MIRO is designed to help determine the abundance of each of these ingredients, in order to understand the nature of the comet's nucleus, the process of outgassing and where they originated on the surface.