Last 12th of november the Lander Philae left his mother spacecraft Rosetta to go toward the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
The manoevre was quite complicated being Rosetta far away from the comet, but mainly for the comet morphology, very complex, and for its lack of gravity. The manoevre was very well commanded by the ESOC command centre but a software bug (due to a late update in the lander control unit) caused some problems so that the lander reached the surface without securing itself resulting in a first bounce that lasted two hours and went a kilometre high. It then bounced again and again. Hereafter a spectacular images that I had the opportunity to download directly from the OSIRIS experiment (the eyes of Rosetta) showing the impact and the actual lander status.
We hope the comet, rotating with respect to the sun, will bring the lander back to light and thus back from ibernation (a state that is necessary in order to preserve its functionality).
Credit ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA