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| Philae comet lander wakes up | Philae comet lander wakes up |
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| The European Space Agency (Esa) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth. | The European Space Agency (Esa) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth. |
| Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November. | |
| It worked for 60 hours before its solar-powered battery ran flat. | |
| The comet has since moved nearer to the sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos. | The comet has since moved nearer to the sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos. |
| The probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?" | |
| On its blog, Esa said that Philae contacted Earth, via Rosetta, for 85 seconds in the first contact since going into hibernation in November. | |
| "Philae is doing very well. It has an operating temperature of -35C and has 24 watts available," said Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec. | |
| Scientists say they now waiting for the next contact. | |
| Analysis: Jonathan Amos, BBC science correspondent | |
| When Philae first sent back images of its landing location, researchers could see it was in a dark ditch. The Sun was obscured by a high wall, limiting the amount of light that could reach the robot's solar panels. Scientists knew they only had a limited amount of time - about 60 hours - to gather data before the robot's battery ran flat. | |
| But the calculations also indicated that Philae's mission might not be over for good when the juice did eventually run dry. The comet is currently moving in towards the Sun, and the intensity of light falling on Philae, engineers suggested, could be sufficient in time to re-boot the machine. | |
| And so it has proved. There is some relief also, because the very low temperatures endured by the lander in recent months could have done irreparable damage to some of the circuitry. The fact that both the computer and transmitter have fired up indicate that the engineering has stood up remarkably well to what must have been really quite extreme conditions. Scientists must now hope they can get enough power into Philae to carry out a full range of experiments. | |
| One ambition not fulfilled before the robot went to sleep was to try to drill into the comet, to examine its chemical make-up. This will become a priority, | |
| Philae is designed to analyse ice and rock on the comet. | |
| The Rosetta probe took 10 years to reach the comet, and the lander - about the size of a washing-machine - bounced at least a kilometre when it touched down. | The Rosetta probe took 10 years to reach the comet, and the lander - about the size of a washing-machine - bounced at least a kilometre when it touched down. |
| Before it lost power, Philae sent images of its surroundings which showed it was in a type of ditch with high walls blocking sunlight from its solar panels. | |
| Its exact location on the comet has since been a mystery. | Its exact location on the comet has since been a mystery. |