Valentine’s Day Rendezvous
February 13th 2011 22:38
Category: Space Probes
Image taken in 2005 by Deep Impact just after a portion of the probe crashed on the surface of Comet Temple1
Many may remember the NASA's Deep Impact mission. In July 2005, called Deep Impact.
Deep Impact spacecraft fired a large projectile that impacted on the surface of Comet Tempel 1 to study its makeup.
The Star Dust probe will hopefully capture an image of the impact point created by the impactor the resulting image will show a crater.
Since the launch of Star Dust in 1999 it has travelled almost 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles).
The Star Dust probe has been a real success story In 2004, the Stardust mission became the first to collect dust samples directly from comet Wild 2, as well as interstellar dust. Samples were returned in 2006 for study via a capsule that detached from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth. The Stardust probe was renamed to Stardust-NEXT .
Currently Stardust-NEXT spacecraft was approximately 24.6 million kilometers (15.3 million miles) away from its encounter. This is the last mission for Stardust-NEXT as it is running out of fuel as is about to encounter a second comet nucleus in the nest few days.
Comet Tempel1 long elliptical orbit takes it as close in to the sun as the orbit of Mars and almost as far away as the orbit of Jupiter.
The spacecraft is expected to fly past the nearly 6-kilometer-wide comet (3.7 miles) on Valentines day at a distance of approximately 200 kilometers (124 miles).
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Happy Valentine's Day!
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
Thank you S.L.
And a Happy Valentine's Day to you too.
Images should be available on the 15 February.