Rosetta's OSIRIS narrow angle camera also snapped an image of Philae's first bounce back into space after its harpoons failed to fire and anchor it to the surface of comet 67P.

From left to right the images show Philae drifting to the surface before making contact at 15:43 GMT. It then bounced into space, shown in the dark top right image, lifting 1 kilometre high off the ground, moving eastward.

Warwick Holmes, an Australian avionics engineer who helped build Rosetta, described the mosaic as "one of the most incredible images in space exploration history, after Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon".

Philae's next move requires some informed guesswork, as no images yet exist of what happened next. The European Space Agency's flight engineers have suggested that after the first bounce it descended to the surface again and bounced for a second time at 17:25 GMT.

Eight minutes later, at 17:33, it reached its final resting point, likely on the edge of a cliff. The lander's exact whereabouts are still unknown. But scientists are confident they will be able to pinpoint its location using a combination of Philae and Rosetta's cameras and instruments.

Over the weekend, Philae's science instruments completed their experiments gathering information about the comet, including drilling into the surface, before its main battery died.

Holmes said it would probably be several months before exact scientific findings are published as the scientists will  be spending many weeks processing and examining the plethora of scientific data from Philae and Rosetta over the landing site.