Lost comet lander awakes, sends 'hello' from space
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Source: CNN
(CNN)
It's alive!
Many moons ago, a small space probe named Philae skipped across the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko when the lander's harpoon-like anchoring mechanism failed. It came to rest in a shady spot and, without enough sunlight to keep it powered, it fell asleep after about 60 hours of operation.
Mission scientists had been trying to pinpoint its location since November -- until late Saturday.
At 10:28 p.m., the European Space Agency's operations center in Darmstadt, Germany, just south of Frankfurt, received a signal from Philae, which transmitted more than 300 data packets. Those have been analyzed at the Lander Control Center at the German Aerospace Center, which dubbed Philae's emergence from its seven-month slumber a "'hello' from space."
"Philae is doing very well. It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 watts available," Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec said in a statement. "The lander is ready for operations."
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/14/world/philae-comet-lander-found/index.html
This stuff is fascinating. Just the fact that they were able to land the spacecraft on a relatively tiny comet was enough, but for it to come back to "life" after seven months is unbelievable.
= new reply since forum marked as read
with the obligatory mind meld! 
Interestingly enough, the later Trek series Deep Space 9 re-used that term for a group of shape shifters.
I watched Neal Tyson on a panel, he said we are nearly identical to apes, about 1% difference in DNA. So a 1% diff in alien DNA could make them too smart to want to, or even be bothered with, interacting with us.
But screwing with us, just because they can...
Hello back at ya, Philae! 
