Was gone for a year, the Rosetta probe finds Philae: “slept” on the comet – The Gazzettino

Enzo Vitale

It was slumped in the shelter of a rock. He had more energy, had lost all hope and his only thought, if thought can be called to a car, was dying with the knowledge of lying to hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the place of its creation: the Earth.
But he had to deal with robotic Osiris, the equipment aboard the Rosetta probe, which eventually identified hidden and wedged into a crack on the surface of the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

the find Philae was now considered lost since it gave no signs of herself in months. It had landed on the comet’s surface on the 2nd of November 2014. So the same NASA scientist had not hoped us more, given up. But its profile has not escaped the OSIRIS camera on Rosetta installed which attualemnte is located at a distance of few kilometers from the surface of the 67 / p.

“With even just a little month of mission in front of us , we are delighted to finally be able to have an image of Philae, and to see him in an astonishing level of detail, “said Cecilia Tubiana of the mission team, the first person who saw the Philae profile while downloading photos .

“it’s wonderful news, because, ‘says the Rosetta project scientist Matt Taylor, ESA,” means finally have the information that we lacked to frame in the right context, now that we know of what ground it, the data collected from the lander during the three days of science operations. “

(the details and the Philae lander position taken by the Osiris camera onboard the Rosetta probe Images Esa)

L ‘ last sighting of the lander had been no impact with Agilkia, the first landing place, before rebounding and remain in flight the next two hours before finishing his descent into a place later called Abydos, situated on the lobe small comet. The effort was really great and, after three days, once the main battery charge, the young man had gone into hibernation. The contact has been only six months later, in June of 2015 when its batteries thanks rapprochement of the comet to the Sun, they were charged.

“It’s a remarkable discovery, which comes at the end of a long and meticulous research. By now we were about to give up for lost Philae. It’s amazing to be able to capture these images just at the last moment, “says the Rosetta mission manager Patrick Martin, ESA, referring to the fact that in less than a month also will drop the probe on the surface of the comet. The next September 30, in fact, Rosetta will take its final mission, a one-way trip to study 67P closely, including open pits identified in the Ma’at region, where it is hoped to carry out observations in a position to help us unravel the secrets of the internal structure of the comet.

(the sequence dell’atterragio Philae on the comet 67 / P, Esa images)

the first landing in the history of a comet ( pictured Italian time goes by one hour and a half) had taken place on November 17 two years ago. An impact and then a series of dangerous rebounds had characterized this “accometaggio”, not really soft. But at the end of Philae had anchored firmly with their harpoons in a steep place celestial object.

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