INQUISITR.COM / Science & Tech

Philae Lander Found By Orbiter: Rosetta’s High-Resolution OSIRIS Camera Spots Brave Probe Wedged In Giant Crack On Comet 67P’s Surface

By Patrick Frye
Published on: 10:06 PST, Sep 5, 2016

The Philae lander was spotted by Rosetta spacecraft. The brave probe had gone missing on Comet 67P’s cold and dark surface but was imaged by the spacecraft’s high-resolution camera with less than a month left for the mission. A highly jubilant and relieved European Space Agency (ESA) is now preparing for the final stage of the mission that has stretched for more than a decade.

Philae lander, the brave probe sent off by the ESA’s Rosetta mission to land on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and believed to have been permanently lost, was spotted by the orbiter with barely a month left before the mission’s culmination. The Philae lander was feared lost after it made a remarkable touchdown on the surface of the comet almost two years ago. The probe is the first spacecraft to land on a comet which is hurtling through space at incredible speeds.

Philae lander made history in 2014 after it was confirmed that the probe had made a touchdown on Comet 67P. However, the lander had a very bumpy landing and it bounced twice, obscuring its eventual resting place on the comet and making it impossible for the mission control to locate it, until today. After searching high and low, the ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft’s OSIRIS camera managed to capture a relatively high resolution image of the probe on the rocky and highly uneven surface of the comet, noted Cecilia Tubiana of the OSIRIS camera team, the first person to see the images when they were downloaded from Rosetta spacecraft yesterday,

“With only a month left of the Rosetta mission, we are so happy to have finally imaged Philae, and to see it in such amazing detail. The images were taken on 2 September by the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera as the orbiter came within 2.7 km of the surface and clearly show the main body of the lander, along with two of its three legs.”

While the images obtained by Rosetta’s onboard cameras aren’t highly detailed, they do indicate, with a high level of certainty, the Philae lander has indeed wedged in hopelessly in a giant crack. The images reveal two of the probe’s three legs sticking out, indicating the probe currently lies on one of its sides. The probe looks like it is wedged tight in the gap and will never budge from its final resting place. The probe’s discovery is nothing short of a miracle, shared Mark McCaughrean, senior scientific adviser at the ESA.

“For many people it is a huge emotional closure, but for the scientists it is incredibly important because it now tells us where the measurements were taken that we made with Philae back in 2014 – that context is everything.”

The Rosetta’s images make it clear why the Philae was having such a hard time communicating with the spacecraft. After bouncing twice on the comet’s surface on November 12, 2014, the lander landed on its side. The lander’s final resting place has been christened Abydos, revealed ESA’s Laurence O’Rourke. The OSIRIS and Lander Science Operations and Navigation Center (SONC, CNES) teams had been searching for any signs of the lander for the last few months at ESA, with O’Rourke.

After landing, the Philae lander tried its best to establish contact with Rosetta spacecraft, but the probe’s battery gave out after three days. However, the brave little probe caught a few rays of sunshine when the comet oriented itself toward the sun and managed to send out a few bits of communication in June and July 2015, before falling completely silent.

Even in its silence, the Philae lander has offered a wealth of information that the ESA will study and use to steer the Rosetta spacecraft as it prepares to join the lander on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on September 30.

[Image via European Space Agency]

Share this article: Philae Lander Found By Orbiter: Rosetta’s High-Resolution OSIRIS Camera Spots Brave Probe Wedged In Giant Crack On Comet 67P’s Surface
More from Inquisitr