Video: Lander manager provides update on Philae status

Emboldened by renewed contact with Europe’s comet lander, engineers are repositioning the mission’s Rosetta mothership this week to establish a reliable a communications link with the dishwasher-sized Philae landing craft, a prerequisite for resuming a science campaign abbreviated by a power shortfall last year.

New readings from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission have challenged the theory that comets brought water to Earth in a series of cataclysmic collisions during the solar system’s chaotic youth.

These incredible images show the breathtaking journey of Rosetta’s Philae lander as it approached and then rebounded from its first touchdown on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014.