Rosetta flight director says Philae ready for release

When Edwin Hubble discovered nearly 100 years ago that the universe was uniformly expanding in all directions, the finding was a big surprise. Then, in the mid-1990s, another shocker occurred: astronomers found that the expansion rate was accelerating, perhaps due to “dark energy.” Now, the latest measurements of our runaway universe suggest that it is expanding faster than astronomers thought.

The sharp-eyed science camera on Europe’s Rosetta comet orbiter caught a view of the probe’s fuzzy shadow when controllers guided the spacecraft just a few miles over its subject’s nucleus last month.

Europe’s Philae lander — still latched inside its mothership — has been activated and should be ready for release Wednesday to begin a daring first-ever descent to a comet, the mission’s flight director said Tuesday.