Fila found

“Fila found!” Under this title a message was published today in the official blog of the mission to comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Fila's photographs were received on September 2, a month before the end of the Rosetta mission and show the position of the descent vehicle on the comet. Its position explains the great difficulties that arose with the establishment of communication with the device after landing.

The photo was taken by a narrow-angle camera of Rosetta from a distance of 2.7 km. Up to this point, the device was last seen on November 12, 2014, when it touched a comet in the Agilkia region, named after the island on the Nile, adjacent to the island of Fila. Then the device rebounded and flew for two hours, until it was in the place where it was found on September 2. The exact position was unknown. Thanks to measurements obtained by radio methods, the location of the device was determined in an area of ​​tens of meters. Until recently, a number of potential objects in photographs of this region could not be identified due to the low resolution. There were pictures taken by Fila after landing. The photos showed a rock called “Perihelion Cliff”, under which it appeared.


Only now, when the “Rosetta” was very close to the comet, was it possible to detect Fila. One pixel of this photo in the original resolution corresponds to 5 centimeters on the surface of the comet. Fila's case has a size of about 1 meter. On September 3, the Rosetta mission will enter the final stage - the device will be sent to collide with a comet, during which scientists hope to get very detailed photos of the structure of the Maat region. Filas on the surface of the comet and in the artist's view.