ESA Rosetta's lander, Philae, successfully lands on a comet!

[Regulator75]

Sounds like it's housing a few Predators...

http://www.iflscience.com/space/rose...s-lot-predator

[Itse]

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06...m-hibernation/

Still alive and doing science.

Rosetta's lander Philae is out of hibernation!

The signals were received at ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt at 22:28 CEST on 13 June. More than 300 data packets have been analysed by the teams at the Lander Control Center at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

"Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 Watts available," explains DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec. "The lander is ready for operations."

For 85 seconds Philae "spoke" with its team on ground, via Rosetta, in the first contact since going into hibernation in November.

When analysing the status data it became clear that Philae also must have been awake earlier: "We have also received historical data - so far, however, the lander had not been able to contact us earlier."

Now the scientists are waiting for the next contact. There are still more than 8000 data packets in Philae’s mass memory which will give the DLR team information on what happened to the lander in the past few days on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

[T@T]

It'll be interesting to see the data Philae has gotten and will get, Rosetta itself will move it's orbit down to within 3 miles in the next couple of months so the pics will be crazy good and they may even land her on the surface.

And Comet 67p is starting to grow a tail.

Ground based pic (Chile)


Rosetta pic

[T@T]

Another update from the ESA.

The mission to explore Comet 67P has discovered 16 organic compounds, described as "carbon and nitrogen-rich."

The discovery made by the Philae lander includes four compounds that have never before been detected in comets. And it adds that some of the compounds "play a key role in the prebiotic synthesis of amino acids, sugars ... the ingredients for life."

"For example, formaldehyde is implicated in the formation of ribose, which, ultimately features in molecules like DNA.
"The existence of such complex molecules in a comet, a relic of the early Solar System, imply that chemical processes at work during that time could have played a key role in fostering the formation of prebiotic material,"

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/30/world/...ery/index.html