Taking a ride piggybacking on a comet, the Philae lander is flying through the solar system. After completing a journey of 10 years to reach Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, it finally landed on the comet in November 2014.

It is now all set to experience Perihelion, meaning the comet’s closest approach to the sun during its 6.5-year orbit. Scientists are waiting in excitement to see if Philae manages to send back new information as it goes past the sun.

Perihelion will take place on Thursday. As the comet moves closer to the sun, gas jets will begin bursting out from inside it as ice vaporizes.

Researchers have already reported a 500-metre-long fracture spotted in the “duck-shaped” comet’s 0.6-mile wide neck. This is the area where rupture is likely to take place as forces would be built in its interior due to the rising temperatures.

Philae’s mother ship Rosetta has recorded growing activity in the comet over the past few weeks. Last month, it recorded a strong eruption that pushed away the strong solar wind. Rosetta’s scientific camera Osiris took the images showing a jet of gas and dust coming out from the side of the neck joining the comet’s two lobes.

According to scientists, the material in the jet was estimated to be travelling at the speed of 10 metres per second or faster.

“This is the brightest jet we’ve seen so far. Usually the jets are quite faint compared to the nucleus and we need to stretch the contrast of the images to make them visible, but this one is brighter than the nucleus”, said Dr. Carsten Guttler, Osiris team member at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany.