The BBC reports that Philae, the lander of the Rosetta probe on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko has been located in a high-resolution image from Rosetta.
It was assumed Philae had bounced into a dark ditch on touchdown - an analysis now borne out by the latest pictures, which were acquired from a distance of 2.7km from the icy body.
[...] Rosetta had previously surveyed this location - dubbed Abydos - without success. "Candidate detections" were made but none were very convincing.
The difference today is a closer-in perspective and a change in the seasons on the comet, which means the hiding place is now better illuminated. The discovery comes just a few weeks before controllers plan to crash-land Rosetta itself on to the comet to formally end its mission.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:01AM
Seems to me they ought to try to park the damned thing on the comet. Try to choose an especially well lighted area, which indidentally will point toward the earth most of the time. This thing has solar powered comms, right? So, it will fade out over time, then maybe it will come back to life as the comet approaches again. That would be really cool - "Hey, Earth, I'm awake and reporting again!"
It seems a little perverse to just crash a working robot because you don't know what it might be able to do next.
Early warning of an extra-stellar invasion, maybe? "Hey, Earth, there's a lot of radio traffic in my vicinity, watch out for the incoming fleet!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2016, @06:05AM
It's running out of propellant, it can't do much more "flying".
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2016, @07:42AM
That explains all the "vehicles" parked in every redneck's yard. Never know when you might feel the urge to get that ol' Rosetta probe up and running again! Or the '54 Rambler. Or the 1942 Ford. Don't make 'em like that any more. Or the DeSoto! Now if only we had held onto the Plymouth Satellite, or the Ford Galaxy, or the Mercury Comet. Hey, it already was a Comet, so no need to park it on one, we could just leave it sit on blocks in the back lot. Of course, the Comet was just a spiffier Pinto, so it was prone to rear-end explosions. Maybe better just to crash-land the sucker down at the Pacific Hide & Fur.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday September 06 2016, @08:34AM
Seems to me they ought to try to park the damned thing on the comet.
That's what the lander was designed to do. Hence the name.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 06 2016, @08:58AM
Yeah, I got that. So, first plan failed, fall back and try to make the best of things. A crashed craft isn't going to do ANYONE any good in the future. So, if it fails to attach, no big deal - it's still an attempted landing. If it ever did get landed, it would be there from now on, right? Even if it fails to make a solid landing, it's now in the same orbit as the comet. They'll be back around again - in how many decades?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2016, @08:23PM
they seem to want to crash everything and build new ones.
Perhaps this is part of a new world order jobs program, since no government lately seems to be free of such conspiracy to smash their probes into heavenly bodies at great expense. That actually doesn't sound so bad when phrased that way; they even provide the pictures for free!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2016, @11:13AM
Because Akhmed and Mustafa might hijack it and take away our FREEDAWMS with it.
Just kidding: the Earth is Flat. There are no comet landers and orbiters.