Hacker News Reader

Comment by jbogp | Hacker News Reader

That's a great achievement in any case. I'm just slightly worried from the looks of this picture that Philae actually stabilized on its side.

Also the large amount of shadow in the area is worrisome for the solar panels to function properly.

Press conference with the release of a full panorama (which will hopefully not confirm the side landing) is scheduled for 1400 CET.

View on HN

The sunlight appears to be coming from behind and to the left of Philae in this picture, at a fairly low angle, so the back of it should (I hope) be reasonably illuminated at the moment.

It's definitely not clear from this picture which way is "up". It looks to me like up may be towards the top right of the picture, in which case Philae may be at a 45 degree angle. But I'm probably wrong - the full panorama should tell all.

After staring at the image a lot more, I realised I'm completely wrong. The leg reveals which way the lighting is coming from - above, slightly to the left, and probably slanting slightly into the camera. So my original interpretation of the orientation cannot be correct.

The real question is whether the picture should be rotated 90+ degrees clockwise.

The lander's leg is very well lit and there is clearly nothing underneath it. The antenna appears (based on it's end converging with it's own shadow) to be resting against either a rock or the surface.

I'm not a rocket scientist ... I hope I'm grossly misinterpreting this image!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com