In a dramatic turn of events, the European Space Agency's Philae lander that has had a not too smooth touchdown on comet 67P has finally been found just weeks before the mother ship Rosetta itself prepares to dive onto the comet's surface.
The Philae had almost crash landed on Comet 67P back on Nov. 12, 2014. It got stuck within a shadowy region where its solar cells failed to deploy, relying instead on its batteries to perform whatever little it could pull off.
Overall, it is just 60-hours' worth of data that Philae had transmitted back to the mother ship Rosetta. However, it still was able to make a few discoveries within that time, which, according to Space includes confirming the presence of organics on the comet's surface.
"For many people it is a huge emotional closure, but for the scientists it is incredibly important because it now tells us where the measurements were taken that we made with Philae back in 2014 - that context is everything," said senior scientific adviser at ESA, Mark McCaughrean.
Almost a year after Philae had transmitted for the last time that scientists involved with the project finally declared the mission to be over this past July. The entire mission still has huge significance in that it happens to be the first time that a man-made object was made to land on a comet, The Guardian reported.
The discovery of Philae's final resting place will allow scientists to better analyse the findings of the lander before it ran out of power. Scientists involved in the mission couldn't have asked for a better conclusion to the project that itself may not have seen things play out according to script.
Fortunately for them, a logical conclusion seems to have been reached now that they at least know where Philae would be resting in what is being described as a state of 'eternal hibernation'. The next episode to look forward to would be the crash landing of the Rosetta mother ship which would mark the final culmination of the entire mission.
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