Cliff’s shadow poser for comet lander
Print Edition
EUROPE’S comet lander Philae has come to rest in the shadow of a cliff, posing a potential problem for its solar panels, scientists from the European Space Agency said yesterday as they published its first image from the surface of a comet.
Philae is still stable despite a failure to latch on properly to the comet’s rocky terrain, mission scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring said, adding that it appears to be standing on just two of its three feet but its scientific instruments are operating normally.
The lander scored a historic first on Wednesday, touching down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a decadelong, 6.4-billion-kilometer journey through space aboard its mother ship, Rosetta.
Philae has enough power for about 64 hours and solar panels to extend that for an hour each day. Ground controllers are going to see whether it’s possible to adjust the lander to make sure its solar panels can catch the sun and charge its batteries, Bibring said.
The lander’s harpoons, which were meant to anchor it to the surface of the comet, failed to deploy, causing it to bounce twice before it came to rest.
Scientists are still analyzing what effect the two bounces had on the spacecraft. Communication with the lander is slow, with signals taking more than 28 minutes to travel between Earth and the Rosetta orbiter flying above the comet.
Another key question is whether Philae’s drill can be used to extract samples from beneath the surface without pushing it into space. Gravity on the comet is 1/100,000th that of Earth, meaning the washing machine-sized lander weighs just 1 gram.
Philae and Rosetta will use 21 instruments to analyze the comet over the coming months. Scientists hope the project will help them better understand comets and other celestial objects, as well as possibly answer questions about the origins of life on Earth.
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