I look forward to hearing what the various experiments have to say about the geology of the comet but I don't think they've released much just yet.
That "Geological Summary" is just a comment under the ESA picture by somebody interpreting the heavily compressed images that have been released. The raw images won't be released until the science teams have had a chance to work through all the data they've got and they've published their results.
I thought that the bright stuff in that image looked just like ice but the image has so many compression artifacts that those 'ice' features could literally just be due to the compression.
P.S. the MUPUS team did release a short statement about some of the physical properties which I'll paste here:
Quote:
First off: some reported MUPUS results as found in media are wrong. They never asked us.
MUPUS TM worked fine throughout the whole timeline and sees a very cold steep wall in front of us. TM sees clear diurnal temperature signal. Around local noon direct sunlight on that wall caused a steep temperature increase and also steep temperature drop shortly after. Data indicate low thermal diffusivity and fluffy substance.
The anchors still below Philae in shadow see the diurnal heat wave as well and at the same time as TM and the solar panels.
Penetrator was deployed to the commanded distance. Remember that device had not been switched on since 2002. Temperature inside PEN dropped significantly compared to status before deployment.Might have hit a pile of stuff on the way out. Another instrument saw better performance thereafter - we might have changed Philae's attitude.
Hammering started as intended in the lowest of 3 power settings (expecting a fluffy soft surface). The depth sensor shows some up and down but no progress. The control loop increased to power setting 2. Depth sensor still shows no progress. Control loop goes to power setting 3. Still no progress! This means that the stuff is really hard! A very interesting finding, not visible from orbit!
We have a secret power setting 4. Nicknamed "desperate mode". Beyond the design specs. We activated it. The truly genius designer of the hammer, Jerzy Grygorczuk, always said "be careful with power mode 4. And still no progress. The hammer gave up and failed after 7 minutes. Jerzy was right. We were desperate, activated, were punished. Surface must be >2 MPa hard! The comet remains surprising bizarre and uncooperative. To put this into perspective: MUPUS performed beautifully inside the specifications. The comet failed to cooperate. The loss of subsurface data is sad. The detection of this very hard crust is a great find the orbiter couldn't have done.
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