Battery power will run out after 60 hours unless team can move it into sunlight The surface of the comet around the point of final touchdown during Philae's descent. Superimposed on top of the image is a sketch of the Philae lander in the configuration the lander team currently believe it is in. TIME is running out for the small probe which has landed on an icy comet 511 million kilometres from Earth and is precariously balanced on just two of its three legs. The washing machine-sized Philae landed on the speeding comet and bounced twice after harpoons designed to anchor it failed to fire. Mission director Paolo Ferri said: "It looks like Philae is resting against a very irregular rock. There is some speculation about it being in a hole. The probe is only receiving 1.5 hours of light for every 12-hour comet rotation which is not enough to recharge its batteries once the primary 60-hour charge runs out. Boffins at the European Space Agency's Mission Control Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, have been trying to work out how to get it into the light, including using its instruments to make it hop. But time and power is running out. "We have estimations right now that go between Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon," Ferri said. The surface of the comet as seen from the Philae lander. Picture: ESA/Getty Source: Getty Images Philae is transmitting back pictures and data from the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet, which is hurtling through space at 66,000km/h. The data is transmitted via the Rosetta satellite to earth where stations including the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla send them to the Mission Control Centre in Europe. Originally published as The clock is ticking for space probe