Posing for a comet close-up

While awaiting observations of Comet Siding Spring at Mars (can't find any yet), I must note these even closer close-ups taken by Rosetta.  It's only 10 km, just over 6 miles of course, away from the comet. That's a hair's-breadth in astronomical terms.

Now this has been done before, with an asteroid, by the NEAR mission.  But this is a comet, a primordial snowball, the stuff of legend and harbinger of woes.  Never has anything been this close to a comet (except when Deep Impact impacted).  So this is COOL, as in way-in-the-depths of outer space COOL.

Cometwatch at 10 km


Here's one of the close-up frames. Remarkable topography.  And lots of cometary boulders.