We may think hunting for a set of lost vehicle keys is a tragic event but consider the distressing circumstances of losing your pricey astro lander on a streaking outer space comet.
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Now, with the Rosetta mission drawing to a close, the satellite “mothership” finally spied its errant daughter lodged in a crevice.
Philae, a tiny robotic spacecraft, was sent by the European Space Agency as part of the Rosetta mission. The European Space Agency (ESA) zoomed in on the snap…
The lander was discovered two years after Philae landed on the comet. The discovery was done just in time before the end of Rosetta mission.
The data recovered from Philae has already immensely helped scientists to understand the nature of comets and the role they play in universe. “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”, Mark McCaughrean, senior scientific adviser at ESA said in a statement. “If we look at the Philae images, the feet kind of sticking up, one in the air, one to one side, resting on a piece of rock, seeing the overhanging cliff and other local terrain, it’s where we thought it was but it’s always nice to get that image to say yes, here I am, and it’s very clear”. After further communication proved impossible, the radio equipment Rosetta used to communicate with Philae was disabled to save power.
Later this month, as Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko sails away from our warming star and in the direction of Jupiter’s orbit, the solar energy required to juice Rosetta and its compliment of instruments will wane. In addition to having a faulty thruster, the lander failed to fire the harpoons that would have locked it to the surface of the comet. Rosetta is now set to descend and crash into 67P on September 30, using its last energy reserves to perform close-in analysis and detailed studies of the surface of the comet.
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The ESA said that Rosetta’s mission was coming to an end because of the “spacecraft’s ever-increasing distance” from the Sun and Earth, resulting in reduced solar power and bandwidth. “It is incredible we have captured this at the final hour”.
