Missing Space Craft Rosetta Found

The European Space Agency’s missing spacecraft known as the Rosetta spacecraft has images of standing on a comet. The image was taken back in 2014 before Rosetta landed on the comet, Comet 67P. Three pictures were taken. Rosetta spacecraft was only 17.5 miles (28.2 kilometers) away from the comet’s surface.

The geographic regions of the comet have been named. The left side of the region is as Seth and the right is known as Hapi. Seth is one of the larger geographical regions of the two comet lobes. Hapi, on the other hand, has a smoother surface and is on the neck of the comet, which connects the two lobes.

There is speculation to believe that are two more regions, Babi and Aker, located on the large lobe of the comet. The ESA informed there is a cliff known as the Aswan cliff, that separates the Seth and Hapi regions.

On 13 August 2015, the ESA website reported, Rosetta had revealed a chunk of this cliff that had collapsed, due to Comet 67P approaching the suns orbit.

Shadow of Rosetta spacecraft on the surface of Comet 67P.

Rosetta then crash landed on the comet on Sept. 30, 2016, which conceded the 12-year mission. Because of Rosetta’s solar panels inability to collect enough energy to fly away from the Sun along 67P’s elliptical orbit, the scientist decided to land on the comet’s surface.

Rosetta was the first probe ever to land on a comet by the Philae lander. This was confirmed back in November of 2014. After three days of landing on a shadowy cliff, the probe entered “idle mode.” because its panels were deprived of sunlight.

In June 2015, the ESA began to wake up the probe, sending data to Rosetta. As of July 2016, scientist shutdown shut down the communication link between Rosetta and Philae.