The European Space Agency says its comet lander appears to have come to rest in the shadow of a cliff, posing a potential problem for its solar panels.
Mission scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring says ground controllers will see whether it’s possible to adjust the lander to make sure its solar panels can catch the sun and charge the batteries.
Bibring said Thursday that the lander, called Philae, also appears to be standing on just two of its three feet.
He stressed that — apart from the unplanned alignment — the lander’s scientific instruments are operating normally.
The landing Wednesday was the first time a spacecraft has ever landed on a comet.
Earlier this morning, the European Space Agency published the first image taken from the surface of a comet, and said that the Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae lander is still “stable” despite a failure to latch on properly to the rocky terrain.
The lander scored a historic first Wednesday, when it touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a decade-long journey through space on its mother ship Rosetta.
Scientists’ jubilation was slightly dampened because the harpoons which were meant to anchor the lander to the surface failed to deploy, causing it to bounce twice before it came to rest on the comet’s body, or nucleus.
“Philae is stable, sitting on the nucleus and is producing data,” Gerhard Schwehm, a scientist on the Rosetta mission, told The Associated Press. “The lander is very healthy.”
The photos sent back to Earth show a rocky surface, with one of the lander’s three feet in the corner of the frame.
Schwehm said it may still be possible to fire the harpoons, but that this would be done only if it doesn’t imperil the lander.
A key question is whether Philae’s drill can be used to extract samples from beneath the surface without pushing the lander into space. Gravity on the comet is 1/100,000th that of Earth, meaning the 100-kilogram, washing machine-sized lander has the same weight on the comet as one gram would on Earth.
Philae and Rosetta will use 21 instruments to analyze the comet over the coming months. Scientists hope the €1.3 billion ($1.75 billion Cdn) project will help them better understand comets and other celestial objects, as well as possibly answer questions about the origins of life on Earth.
