NASA’s Stardust spacecraft, equipped with the University of Chicago’s Dust Flux Monitor Instrument (DFMI), is hurtling at more than 24,000 miles an hour toward a Valentine’s Day encounter with comet Tempel 1.
Stardust will approach to within 124…
Tag Archives | deep impact spacecraft
2-timing spacecraft has date with another comet
Spacecraft flew through ‘snowstorm’ on encounter with comet Hartley 2
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — On its recent trip by comet Hartley 2, the Deep Impact spacecraft took the first pictures of, and flew through, a storm of fluffy particles of water ice being spewed out by carbon dioxide jets coming from the rough ends of t…
Primordial dry ice fuels comet jets
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — One of the biggest comet findings coming out of the amazing images and data taken by the University of Maryland-led EPOXI mission as it zipped past comet Hartley 2 last week is that dry ice is the ‘jet’ fuel for this comet…
UMD-led deep impact spacecraft successfully flies by comet Hartley 2
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The University of Maryland-led EPOXI mission successfully flew by comet Hartley 2 at 10 a.m. EDT today, and the spacecraft has begun returning images. Hartley 2 is the fifth comet nucleus visited by any spacecraft and the s…