National Aeronautics and Space Administration Deep Impact has deep space experience with Comet Hartley 2

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Deep Impact spacecraft moving as close as 435 miles to Comet Hartley 2 Thurs and beamed back close-up images from deep space. Five years earlier, Deep Impact launched a probe and took pictures of Comet Tempel 1. Comet Hartley 2 had been found by Hartley, an Australian astronomer who had been at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., when pictures of his namesake arrived. Article resource – NASA Deep Impact has deep space encounter with Comet Hartley 2 by Personal Money Store.

Encounter in deep space

When NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft beamed back the first photos from its rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2, scientists standing by at JPL Labs cheered and applauded. The comet nucleus, about three quarters of a mile across, looked like a misshapen ball of cosmic ice resembling a chicken drumstick emitting glowing jets of dust and gas as it hurtled via space. After traveling 2.5 billion miles in five years, the spacecraft flew past the Comet Hartley 2 at a speed of more than seven miles per second, or 27,000 mph.

The Deep Impact mission of NASA

Scientists study comets because they harbor original ingredients from the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. In January 2005, NASA's Deep Impact mission was launched. Then Comet Tempel 1 was visited. When it arrived at the comet it launched an 800-pound copper projectile into the nucleus. The plume and ice was measured by sensors. Finding the composition of the comet was the purpose of this. The spacecraft stopped and met with Comet Boethin in 2008. Sadly, the comet broke up after Deep Impact left. It took another two years to get to Hartley 2 which had been then sent to.

NASA deep space missions

Comet Hartley 2 is the fifth comet to be photographed by deep space probes. Halley, Wild 2, Tempel 1 and Borelli are the other four. All of the comets seem to look really different. The NASA spacecraft Stardust got grains of dust from Comet Wild 2 in 2006 as it passed. The Deep Impact's first mission, Tempel 1, will hopefully be reached again on Valentine's Day 2011 as it sent the dust back to Earth and moved on to its next destination.

Articles cited

New York Times

nytimes.com/2010/11/02/science/space/02comet.html?_r=2&src=twrhp

Christian Science Monitor

csmonitor.com/Science/2010/1020/Comet-Hartley-2-to-swing-by-Earth-Wednesday

CNET

news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20021786-239.html