Philae probe drills into comet, turns toward light
Source: Associated Press
Philae probe drills into comet, turns toward light
By GEIR MOULSON, Associated Press | November 14, 2014 | Updated: November 14, 2014 6:24pm
BERLIN (AP) — The spacecraft that landed on a comet performed two tricky maneuvers Friday, by drilling into the rocky surface and rotating itself to catch more sunlight.
Both operations carried considerable risks, because they could have toppled the probe or push it out into the void. But without them the Philae lander that scored a historic first by touching down on a comet Wednesday risked skipping a key scientific experiment and running out of battery.
Scientists at the European Space Agency said the maneuvers appeared to have worked.
"My rotation was successful (35 degrees). Looks like a whole new comet from this angle," read a message posted on the lander's official Twitter account.
Earlier, the scientists tweeted: "First comet drilling is a fact!"
Since landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko some 311 million miles (500 million kilometers) away, the lander has performed a series of tests and sent reams of data, including photos, back to Earth.
But with just two or three days of power in its primary battery, the lander has to rely on solar panels to generate electricity after that.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/science/article/European-probe-plants-thermometer-on-comet-5892326.php
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stupid fucking assholes
But I love this stuff, landing on a comet?
How in the HELL did they do that 
with, gulp, us?
ESA is a leader in great stuff. I am not sure why, but drilling into a comet made me smile. My idea of comets is ice and rocks. Sort of not substantial. I guess the lander will give us some real info on this. Exciting!!
More playing politics with science. That will get wider dissemination and do us less good than the data for a long while, maybe ...
I watched Japanese News during Fukushima - they taught people English in a second screen - words, pronunciations, etc.
We, on the other hand, demand Wolf Blitzer.
We is funny people.
This is so incredibly cool and completely boggles the mind! 
However, some careful work by a number of people in ESA's Flight Dynamics team and by followers of our Rosetta blog has shown that these NAVCAM images show more, namely Philae itself, just after the bounce!
It appears as a couple of brighter pixels closely accompanied by its shadow in the form of a couple of darker ones just below, both to the right of the diffuse dust cloud shadow.
Credit for the first discovery goes to Gabriele Bellei, from the interplanetary division of Flight Dynamics, who spent hours searching the NAVCAM images for evidence of the landing.
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/16/philae_spotted_after_first_landing/
