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Rosetta science team thinks Philae might come to life in the spring

And disclose the biggest surprise of Comet 67P

Scientists on the Rosetta comet mission team report they are confident that the Philae lander is not down for the count and should be revived in the spring or summer of next year once it has had a chance to warm up a bit.

"We expect to have enough energy to boot around March next year. Then Philae needs to be heated until we can think of starting to charge the battery," said Michael Maibaum, the Philae system engineer and deputy operations manager, during a Reddit chat session.

"So enough power to run the system, heat it and do charging or other operations we can expect early summer. Once charging can be started, it might take some comet days to charge the battery completely."

Maibaum was referring to comet days, since 67P rotates once every 12.4 hours, and it's hoped that as the cosmic snowball nears the Sun the Philae lander should get more sunlight on its solar panels than the current hour a day it's currently seeing.

"We are not sure yet where Philae is, but if it is at what some people think is the most likely place, the seasonal change toward spring in Philae's hemisphere should bring Philae into much more sunlight on a time scale of months," said astronomy professor Michael A'Hearn.

"That, coupled with the fact that the comet is getting closer to the sun, should warm up the batteries enough to take a charge and then keep them charged. Don't blame the batteries, blame Philae for wanting to go into a winter den for hibernation."

Philae is currently shut down after its awkward triple bounce landing left it propped up near a cliff with one leg in the air. The lander bounced kilometers from original landing site after the explosives that were supposed to fire twin harpoons into the comet's surface failed to detonate.

A'Hearn said that the imager on the Rosetta spacecraft is currently looking for Philae and has photographed the area it bounced to extensively, but that the images are still onboard in a queue waiting to be sent back to Earth. Once space is available they will make the 28 minute transition to Earth's receiver networks.

In all, nine scientists from the Rosetta team took part in the session, taking questions as diverse as "Have you ever touched a monkey?" to "What shirts are you wearing?" Thankfully most focused on the Rosetta mission itself.

When asked what the most significant finding from Rosetta the team was split. A'Hearn said it was either the discovery that Comet 67P doesn't initially shed volatiles as much as water, although Philae's discovery of quite how hard the comet is was also a major piece of news.

Martin Knapmeyer, co-Investigator of the SESAME Experiment, agreed that the hard surface of 67P was a shocker. It's possible that this hard shell is formed by sintering the team said, a process whereby a material heats up enough to harden, but not enough to melt.

Ekkehard Kührt, the science manager for Rosetta, agreed that the hard surface was an intriguing surprise, not least because the surface is littered with boulders, but the overall duck-shape of the comet was the biggest shock. ®

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