The Rosetta Mission space probe, which touched down Wednesday, had only a sliver of sunlight powering its solar batteries after it ended up surrounded by rocks and in shadow.
The Guardian said it all with this headline: Rosetta mission: Philae goes to sleep on comet as batteries run out.
According to the paper, the lander was getting less than two hours of sunlight instead of the six to seven hours it needed.
All is not completely lost. The comet, which is out beyond the orbit of Mars, will make its closest approach to the sun in August 2015, which may allow the lander to reboot.
The deflation about the comet landing's turn for the worse was matched only by the elation about its arrival.
Nothing seemed to captivate the world more this week by the landing of the Rosetta space probe on a comet 371 million miles from earth.
Perhaps that is because the universe is us.
"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars," late astronomer Carl Sagan once said. "We are made of starstuff”
And starstuff is definitely out of this world. For proof, just check out the videos below.
The lander touched down on the surface of Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko, a.k.a. Comet 67P, Wednesday, to the applause and cheers of scientists at the agency’s mission control in Darmstadt, Germany.
Philae bounced twice after touchdown, however, and ended up in a shadow, where it ran out of its solar-powered battery Friday.
It had been analyzing the cosmic makeup of the comet and relaying data and spectacular photographs back to earth.
According to the mission's blog, team scientists were very happy about what the scientific marvel had been able to do so far.
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