As the robot probe Rosetta begins a detailed analysis of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with which it rendezvoused earlier this month, it's already captured remarkable images of the space traveler's surface.

One recent image in particular was taken by the Rosetta's narrow-angle Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System camera Aug. 7, while the spacecraft was actually still 65 miles (104 kilometers) away from the comet's 2.5-mile-wide (4-kilometer) nucleus.

The image depicts the comet's so-called head, which exhibits parallel linear features that resemble cliffs, and the more-narrow neck, which apparently contains scattered boulders on a relatively smooth, slumping surface.

Meanwhile, the image shows the lower half of the comet, its so-called body, seems to have a multi-variable terrain with peaks and valleys, along with both smooth and rough topographic features.

A 3-D version of the image depicting the comet is available at: https://go.nasa.gov/1t3K3FU.

Launched in March 2004 by the Euopean Space Agency, and comprising an orbiter as well as a lander, the Rosetta mission is designed to study comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko up close in unprecedented detail, prepare for landing a probe on the comet's nucleus in November and track its changes as it sweeps past the sun.

It's expected the lander will obtain the first images ever taken from a comet's surface -- and will register the first observation of a comet's composition by drilling into the surface.

Rosetta also will be the first spacecraft in history to see at close range how a comet changes as it is subjected to the increasing intensity of the sun's radiation.

Observations produced by the mission will help scientists learn more about the origin and evolution of the solar system and the role comets may have played in seeding Earth with water.

NASA scientists explain comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the extended period when the sun and its planets formed.