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The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgamesEARTHDATE: November 7, 2010
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REAL LIFE NEWS: COMET FLYBY PICTURESby HazedIn an amazing story of technology being given a second lease of life, a spaceprobe has sent back some close-up pictures of another comet, called Hartley 2. The Deep Impact space probe was previously sent off to comet Tempel 1 in 2005, where it smashed an impact probe into the space snowball, gaining valuable data on the make-up of the comet. That was supposed to be the end of its mission, but NASA checked how much fuel it had left in the tank, and figured it had enough to carry on. By judicious low passes above the Earth, they steered the craft to a new rendezvous with another comet. They renamed the probe EPOXI (which stands for Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization plus Deep Impact Extended Investigation - although that doesn't seem to work, really, does it?). Now, 5 years later, it's reached Hartley 2 and performed a flyby. At its closest approach it was about 430 miles away, roughly as planned. Pretty good maneuvering! Since then, it's been beaming pictures and data back home to NASA. You can see some of its pictures, and read more about the gravity-assist passes it took above the Earth, on the NASA website. |
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