Pluto probe New Horizons still going after 8 years, unlike ESO cometprobe. Guess why?

On Tuesday, December 9, 2014 6:18:22 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Tuesday, December 9, 2014 8:55:56 PM UTC-5, palsing wrote:
On Tuesday, December 9, 2014 5:34:54 PM UTC-8, wrote:

Rosetta $1.8 billion dollar including Philae... close enough. The lander was the hype. Comet rendezvous and orbit... not so much.

But hey, maybe if the thing hasn't frozen solid in a few months...

It seems to me that it is more likely to die of overheating rather than freezing...

If it's in a shadow it will tend to freeze.

It is in a shadow part of the time. The rotation period is about 12 hours, and right now it is getting about 1.5 hours of sunlight per day. As this comet approaches the Sun those number will change, with more and more sunlight per day. It was always thought that the lander would meet its demise due to overheating, which is probably still the case.