NASA Comet Hunter Spots Its Valentine
NASA’s Stardust spacecraft has downlinked its first images of comet Tempel 1, the target of a flyby planned for Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14. The images were taken on Jan. 18 and 19 from a distance of 26.3 million kilometers (16.3 million miles), and 25.4 million kilometers (15.8 million miles) respectively. On Feb. 14, Stardust will fly within about 200 kilometers (124 miles) of the comet’s nucleus.
“This is the first of many images to come of comet Tempel 1,” said Joe Veverka, principal investigator of NASA’s Stardust-NExT mission from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. “Encountering something as small and fast as a comet in the vastness of space is always a challenge, but we are very pleased with how things are setting up for our Valentine’s Day flyby.” (more…)