The European Space Agency has found its long-lost Philae lander. After making a rough, bouncing landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November, 2014, the spacecraft was unable to deploy its solar panels in a proper configuration to capture enough energy. Its batteries ran out within a few days of landing.

Although scientists have made a few more fleeting contacts with the dying spacecraft since then, Philae's fate—was it stuck in a ditch, or nudged up against a cliff wall?—has remained largely a mystery.

Until now. The high resolution camera aboard the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft—which has remained near the comet since deploying Philae two years ago—flew within 2.7km of the comet's surface on September 2, and spied the missing lander. At such a distance from the comet, the resolution of the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera is about 5 cm/pixel, high enough to reveal Philae’s distinctive 1 m-sized body, and two of its three legs.

“This remarkable discovery comes at the end of a long, painstaking search,” said Patrick Martin, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission manager. “We were beginning to think that Philae would remain lost forever. It is incredible we have captured this at the final hour.”

Indeed, Rosetta is soon to go dark, too. As Rosetta's solar arrays cannot collect enough power to guarantee the spacecraft's heaters will keep it warm enough to survive, Rosetta will follow its Philae lander to the surface of the comet. Scientists plan to gather data all the way down.

Listing image by ESA/Rosetta