Rosetta sees the comet just five days before arrival.

This image was acquired 1 August at 04:48 CEST (02:48 UTC) by the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera on board ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft. The distance was approximately 1000 km. Note that the dark spot is an artefact from the onboard CCD.

If this image is rotated approximately 150 degrees, the orientation of the comet is pretty close to that of the 1 August NAVCAM image (distance 1026 km), and thus the two images from the two cameras can be directly compared. Note that, similar to the dark spot artefact in this OSIRIS image, the 1 August NAVCAM image displays white/black artefact spots.

A nice update on a hot Saturday just four days before arrival – time to really get excited!