Mission scientist reacts to historic first images from the surface of a comet

Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera witnessed Philae’s descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The European Philae comet lander, out of power and presumably lost after bouncing into heavily shadowed terrain last November, phoned home Saturday after finally getting enough sunlight on its solar panels to transmit data to the Rosetta orbiter for relay to Earth.

NASA has narrowed its choices for a new billion-dollar robotic space mission: A plutonium-powered quadcopter to explore the hazy landscape of Saturn’s largest moon Titan, or a probe to scoop up a piece of a comet and return it to Earth.