It was certainly cute, but let's not forget that it was always just a "nice extra" to the main Rosetta mission. But it did teach us that landing on (and grabbing onto) a comet surface can be tricky and fail even if you're equipped with several contingency mechanisms.

BTW, ESA is unfortunately not nearly as famous for its public outreach work as NASA, but the Rosetta/Philae PR team was on fire, releasing an incredibly charming series of cartoon animations documenting the mission:

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2016/12/The_amazin...

Be sure to watch until the very end for a very tear-jerking scene :')

And while you're at it, watch the related live-action short science fiction film "Ambition", starring Aidan Gillen: https://youtu.be/H08tGjXNHO4?si=wtEWdv6OmX5y7-eg

It's such a pity about Philae. With just a little more luck, we could have gathered much more information about the comet, even though its achievements are already truly memorable. I wonder when we'll finally be able to land on a comet again.

Both Hayabusa 1 and 2 did sample returns, this flyby is an afterlife extra.

Why is this comet comment downvoted. Thats super interesting.

https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/67p-churyumov-g...