Video: Flight director updates status of comet lander

The sharp-eyed science camera on Europe’s Rosetta comet orbiter caught a view of the probe’s fuzzy shadow when controllers guided the spacecraft just a few miles over its subject’s nucleus last month.

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission stars with Game of Thrones actor Aidan Gillan and actress Aisling Franciosi in a short film released recently to promote the spacecraft’s exploration of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Research teams across Europe spent the last half-year meticulously going through a wish list of experiments for the Philae comet lander without knowing whether they would ever get a chance to execute the tasks.