Comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft awakes from hibernation

Comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta woke from nearly three years of hibernation on Monday to complete a decade-long deep space mission that scientists hope will help unlock some of the secrets of the solar system.
Rosetta, the European Space Agency's cometary probe with NASA contributions, is seen in an undated artist's rendering.

German Aerospace Center (DLR) Chairman Johann-Dietrich Woerner (L-R), European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain, and European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) Director General Thomas Reiter react after ESA's satellite Rosetta resent a signal to ESOC in Darmstadt on January 20.

Having neared the sun again as it tracks the comet on its elliptical orbit around the sun, Rosetta was gently awakened by its internal alarm clock at 1000 GMT on Monday. It then warmed up its systems and transmitted a sign of life - a radio signal - to its creators on Earth.

A scientist of European space agency stands at an airworthy copy of space probe 'Rosetta' in the ESA control center in Darmstadt, Germany on Monday. 

The image shows an artist's impression of the Rosetta orbiter deploying the Philae lander to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The image is not to scale; the Rosetta spacecraft measures 32 m across including the solar arrays, while the comet nucleus is thought to be about 4 km wide.

A scientist of European space agency ESA stands at an airworthy copy of space probe 'Rosetta' in the ESA control center in Darmstadt, Germany, on Monday.

Flight engineers work in the main control room of European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, during the Rosetta mission on January 20, 2014.

A scale model of the Rosetta spacecraft is pictured at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt.