The Rosetta interplanetary probe, designed to study the comet 67P / CG Churyumova-Gerasimenko, emerged from hibernation after 2.5 years

Today it became known that one of the most interesting projects of the European Space Agency, the Rosetta probe, “woke up” without any problems, 2.5 years after entering the hibernation mode. The thing is that, back in 2011, the probe moved away from the Earth at a distance of 549 million kilometers from the Sun, and at that distance the device’s solar cells simply could not supply enough energy to the device’s batteries.

The purpose of the probe itself is to study the comet 67P / CG Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which according to the plan should begin in August this year. The last time the comet was available for observation from Earth on October 5, 2013. Then its path was tracked on the Very Large Telescope (VLT); at this time, the distance to it was about 500 million kilometers.

So, a few hours earlier the probe “woke up”, and sent a signal of awakening to Earth. The signal reached our planet at 22.30 Moscow time. Scientists not only received a signal, but already transmitted some commands to the probe.

Now on the website of the European Space Agency there is a direct broadcast from the probe control center. Habraparser does not allow to place the player’s embed-code, so here is a link to the page where you can see this translation.

It is worth noting that the mission of the probe does not end after approaching the comet. After this event, another probe, Philae Lander, is sent from the Rosetta, which should descend directly to the surface of the comet. The diameter of this object, a comet, is 4 kilometers.