HONG KONG: One year after Rosetta’s Philae probe made a historic landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA) used data from the spacecraft to recreate its crash landing on Nov. 12, 2014.
The spacecraft travelled for about 10 years and more than 4 billion miles to reach the comet. However, things did not go as planned. When the Rosetta orbiter arrived near the comet on Aug. 6, 2014, the first in history, it surveyed where the probe would land. It delivered Philae three months later but the probe did not land on its designated landing spot. Philae bounced off and went silent.
In the video, scientists were able to recreate how Philae supposedly landed on the comet. Apparently,the probe bounced off its intended landing spot and spun above the comet before it finally landed on another spot. Yet, after its initial feedback about the comet, it became silent on Nov. 15, 2014.
On January 2015, the lander made transmissions to its orbiter, Rosetta. After several contacts, it went silent again. Scientists explored the possibilities of why and how the lander bounced off and landed on another part of the comet.
