Heres an update about the Philae lander on comet 67P/Churyumev/Gerasimenko as far as I can understand it. Last night, an attempt was made to raise the lander by 4cm and to rotate it by 35 degrees to try to allow the larger of the solar panels to catch whatever light was there. This was successful from the point of view of turning the lander. However, the move was too late to prevent the craft from going into hibernation as its systems powered down due to a flat battery. It was, however, able to send all the latest scientific data before shutting down. There is a possibility that Philae could wake up in the future as the comet approaches the sun. But this might never happen. Its a wait and see effort. In the meantime, the scientists are delighted that they achieved 80 to 90 per cent of the missions objectives, and we still have months of photos from the Rosetta orbiter to look forward to, showing us what will happen when the comet starts warming up on approach to the sun. Perhaps the best summary of whats been happening is on the Guardians website here:
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 14:38:55 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015