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Luxembourg, 28 October 2020. – The fate of Rosetta’s lander Philae on a remote comet is now clearer: it got stuck in ice.
After years of investigative work, the European Space Agency (ESA) said today, the lander’s second landing site was located on comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko in a site “resembling the shape of a skull”.
“Philae left her footprint in the ice of billions of years, revealing that the comet’s icy interior is softer than the foam of the cappuccino,” ESA said.
Philae landed on the comet’s surface in November 2014, bounced off, collided with a cliff edge, and fell to a second landing position.
“Philae eventually stopped in a sheltered spot that was only identified in the Rosetta images 22 months later, just weeks before the Rosetta mission ended,” ESA said.
“Philae left us with one final mystery waiting to be solved,” said ESA engineer and mission manager Laurence O’Rourke. “It was important to find the landing spot because the sensors on Philae indicated it had been excavated in the surface.”
“This is a fantastic multi-instrument result that not only fills the gaps in the story of Philae’s hopping journey, but also informs us about the nature of the comet,” said Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.
“In particular, understanding the strength of a comet is crucial for the lander’s future missions. The fact that the comet has such a soft interior is really valuable information in terms of how to design the landing mechanisms and also for the mechanical processes that may be required to recover the samples. “
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