After a 10-year cruise, the Rosetta
spacecraft began a close exploration of its main target,
comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in July 2014.
Since then, the Visible InfraRed Thermal Imaging
Spectrometer (VIRTIS) acquired hyperspectral
images of the comet’s surface with an unprecedented
spatial resolution. VIRTIS data are routinely used to
map the surface composition and to retrieve surface
temperatures on the dayside of the comet.
The thermal behavior of the surface of comet 67P
is related to composition and physical properties that
provide information about the nature and evolution of
those materials.
Here we present temperature maps of comet 67P
that were observed by Rosetta under different illumination conditions and different local solar times
