The ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has revealed that the Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, nicked 67P, has a daily freeze/thaw cycle in tune with the sun. (ESA/Rosetta/NWVCam)

The latest in a stunning series of findings from the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe indicate that the surface of Comet 67P has its own freeze-thaw cycle that's in tune with its day and night, just as ice on Earth can freeze and thaw with the sun.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, document 67P's daily water-ice cycle; at the time the calculations were taken, in September 2014, the comet completed rotation every 12 hours.

“We saw the tell-tale signature of water ice in the spectra of the study region [1 square km], but only when certain portions were cast in shadow,” Maria Cristina De Sanctis from INAF-IAPS in Rome, Italy, the lead author of the study, said. “Conversely, when the sun was shining on these regions, the ice was gone. This indicates a cyclical behavior of water [and] ice during each comet rotation.”

When sun hits the water, it turns to gas and “floats away from the comet.” But a store of subsurface ice then makes it way to the surface, replenishing the top water layer.

The Rosetta probe is perhaps best-known for itslast November.(Earlier this month, the ESA released a detailed update on Philae, .)

The Rosetta mission as a whole has provided the best observational data scientists have ever been able to collect from a comet.

“We suspected such a water-ice cycle might be at play at comets, on the basis of theoretical models and previous observations of other comets. But now, thanks to Rosetta's extensive monitoring at 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, we finally have observational proof,” Fabrizio Capaccioni, VIRTIS principal investigator at INAF-IAPS in Rome, Italy, said in the press release.

In the coming months, as more information from Rosetta is downloaded and analyzed, further glimpses into the comet's interior layers are sure to come.

The paper, “The diurnal cycle of water ice on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko,” was published in the journal Nature.

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