Farewell Philae: Earth severs link with silent probe on comet

Earth has bid a final farewell to robot lab Philae, severing communications after a year-long silence from the pioneering probe hurtling through space on a comet.

• After more than 12 months without news, it has been decided to preserve all remaining energy available to Philae’s orbiting mothership Rosetta. Rosetta will remain in orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for another two months.
• Rosetta will crash-land on September 30 to join Philae in their final resting place, concluding a historic quest for cometary clues to the origins of life on Earth.

Philae:

Philae ’s mission was to land successfully on the surface of a comet, attach itself, and transmit data from the surface about the comet’s composition. It is a robotic European Space Agency lander.

• It landed on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, more than ten years after departing Earth.
• The mission seeks to unlock the long-held secrets of comets — primordial clusters of ice and dust that scientists believe may reveal how the Solar System was formed.
• The scientific goals of the mission focus on “elemental, isotopic, molecular and mineralogical composition of the cometary material, the characterization of physical properties of the surface and subsurface material, the large-scale structure and the magnetic and plasma environment of the nucleus.”
• Philae was equipped with an array of experiments to photograph and test the surface of Comet 67P as well as to find out what happens when the roasting effect of the sun drives off gas and dust.