Philae is Back!

7 months ago, the Philae space probe landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after being dropped by Rosetta, still orbiting the comet. The landing was less than textbook, as the harpoons intended to anchor the probe to the comet failed to fire. The probe bounced twice and ended up in the shadow of a cliff. This was not the ideal place for Philae, seeing as the probe is solar powered; after a couple of days Philae's batteries were drained and the probe fell silent.

However, as you might have guessed, this is not the end of the story. While the probe was in a shaded area, the people in charge of the mission believed that the lander may eventually come back to life as the comet slowly changed its orientation, bringing Philae out of the shadow. This was not a definite, there was no guarantee Philae would wake back up, 7 months in the cold vacuum of space is going to be tough on anything.

But since we're here, you can probably guess what happened next. On June 13th, Philae sent its first message back to Earth, along with some historical data, indicating that the probe had been reactivated well before sending a message out. This is great news, now Philae can send back some science, and we'll have gotten more out of it then "hey we landed on a comet."