BERLIN — A shadow was cast — literally — across Europe’s mission to land on and explore a comet. Scientists said Thursday the landing craft not only bounced twice, it also came to rest next to a cliff that’s blocking sunlight from its solar panels.
The good news is that the lander Philae is stable. Its scientific instruments have begun gathering data to send back to Earth.
With a day or two left before the lander’s primary battery is exhausted, scientists were considering what maneuvers to risk to get the solar panels out of the shadows.
The lander touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a decade-long, 4 billion-mile journey through space aboard its mother ship, Rosetta.
Meanwhile, the Rosetta orbiter will use its 11 instruments to analyze the comet. Those instruments include a miniature UV Imaging Spectrograph that was developed at Southwest Research Institute’s Planetary Science division in Boulder.
Denver Post staff writer Laura Keeney contributed to this report.
