The state of the previous facilities, which were over 15 years old, meant that the surface became extremely dangerous after sustained rainfall thanks to its poor drainage, and when temperatures dropped below freezing,
ice patches appeared.
The comet
appears to have undergone visible changes, including the changes in the size and number of surface features such as smooth
patches, pits, and craters, and the loss of
ice vaporized by the Sun or blasted off its surface by the Solar Wind into its tail as well as failing back on the object like snow, so that it
appears to shrink, on average, by 25 to 50 centimeters (9.2 to 19.7 inches) with each orbit around the Sun.