Hi Philae!
In November of 2014, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Spacecraft dropped a washing machine sized box containing scientific instruments onto the surface of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The systems designed to lock the lander in place didn’t fire, and so the lander – named Philae, bounced across the comet’s surface and came to rest in the shadow of a large surface obstacle.
The lander had enough power for a few days, but since it was in the shadow it slowly shut down after returning basic data on its environment. It briefly made contact with the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft earlier this summer when the comet was closest to the sun (that would help the lander’s solar panels receive more energy), but it never received enough to activate it.
This morning, the ESA published this series of images from Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera, taken during a close pass at the comet. In the lower right frame, the Philae lander was spotted leaning against a cliff. A small red dot in the upper right frame marks the location of this shot.
Finding the lander will allow scientists to use the data returned from Philae more appropriately, since they now know where on the comet their measurements came from and can compare what Philae saw in that spot to what the Rosetta spacecraft measured before and after.
-JBB
Image credit: ESA http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/58221-philae-found/