In August, Philae will be able to recharge its battery

As all of us followed excitedly, the landing of Philae on the nucleus of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko did not went as planned because Philae passed dark part of the comet and its battery died of due to lack of sun light to recharge. Still, it returned a gem of valuable data before the loss of its battery power sent it into hibernation.

The controllers of Philae remain blissful as they expect to hear more from it next spring or summer. Why summer? Because the comet draws towards its closest point to the Sun in August, so Philae will be able to warm up and the growing intensity of sunlight on its partially shaded solar arrays may allow its batteries to be recharged.



While Philae is sleeping, its mother Rosetta functions perfectly and sees lots of cometary actions in the form of jets of material streaming away from the comet. For the first time in the science history, there is evidence that the nucleus may be becoming swathed in a tenuous gaseous cloud.

There is a hope for Rosetta’s high resolution cameras may spot Philae in its resting place where it may lean on a rocky edge or a hill. A radio experiment between Rosetta and Philae, before it fell silent, have provided scientists to narrow the lander’s most likely location to a 30x350 meters area of the nucleus.



In other bad news is reported that Nasa has lost contact with one of two solar-orbiting probes that gave us a vital 360° view of the Sun’s surface. Stereo-B (or Stereo-Behind) is slightly further from the Sun than the Earth and lags increasingly behind our planet. It appears to have become disorientated on 1 October, losing its ability to recharge its batteries like Philae and point its antenna to the Earth.