Comet-Bouncing Philae Spacecraft Caught On Camera In Newly Enhanced Images

Credit for the first discovery goes to Gabriele Bellei, from the interplanetary division of Flight Dynamics, who spent hours searching the NAVCAM images for evidence of the landing. Once the images were published, blog reader John Broughton posted a comment to report that he had spotted the lander in them (thank you, John). There was also quite some speculation by Rosetta blog readers in the comments section, wondering which features might be attributable to the lander. Martin Esser, Henning, and Kasuha in particular were among the first to make insightful observations on the topic, although many others have since joined in. Last but not least, a careful independent review of the images was made by Mikel Catania from the earth observation division of Flight Dynamics, with the same conclusion. He also made the annotated animation shown here.