Lost Philae Comet Lander Found On a Dark Crevice on Comet

ESA have lost contact with its Comet lander Philae, but in an unexpected turn of events, the lander was found hidden in one of the crevices of the comet.

The Philae lander was the first man-made object to land on a comet in November 2014. The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they have found the lander.

Philae's mother ship Rosetta found the lander. Rosetta captured the image of the resting place of the lander while orbiting Comet 67P. The discovery was done just in time before the end of Rosetta mission.

The lander was discovered two years after Philae landed on the comet. Although ESA and the scientists behind Philae already gave up, they were all very happy to find "closure" for their lost lander; and even in death, the lander's location can provide vital scientific information. "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," Mark McCaughrean, senior scientific adviser at ESA said in a statement.

Philae was found in a dark crevice in between rocks. This made it impossible for the lander to communicate with Rosetta during the mission. Based on the image by Rosetta, the lander is on its side with two legs visible in the photo. Rosetta has been searching for the comet since it got lost. And successfully, the spacecraft managed to locate the lander on Sept. 2 when it was only 1.7 miles above the comet's surface. The discovery solved the mystery regarding the loss of ESA's Philae lander.

Despite its very short mission on the comet 67P, Philae was able to provide ample data about the comet. It has successfully detected organic molecules on the surface of the comet and was able to beam back images of the comet's surface to Earth.

But despite the discovery of Philae and its resting place on the Comet 67P, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) said that they won't attempt to reconnect with the lander anymore. "This remarkable discovery comes at the end of a long, painstaking search," ESA's Rosetta mission manager Patrick Martin said in a statement. "We were beginning to think that Philae would remain lost forever. It is incredible we have captured this at the final hour."