NASA Stardust Spacecraft to meet comet Tempel 1 for Valentine’s Day
NASA spacecraft due for rendezvous with comet Tempel 1
Stardust approach the comet on Valentine’s Day, taking pictures of devastation left by NASA’s Deep Impact mission of 2005.
It’s not exactly young love, but some might find it romantic. On Valentine’s Day, an aging Lothario that has been flitting from beauty to beauty through the solar system will make his final stop, taking pictures of a battered dowager to send to the folks back home before disappearing forever.
The Stardust spacecraft, which has already taken images of asteroid Annefrank and captured interstellar dust from comet Wild 2, on Monday night will swing by comet Tempel 1. There, it will take new pictures of the devastation wrought on the comet by NASA’s 2005 Deep Impact mission.
The Stardust spacecraft will capture samples of dust from a comet. (NASA / JPL / February 12, 2011)
In that historic encounter six years ago, the Deep Impact spacecraft released an 820-pound probe that crashed into Tempel 1 at 23,000 mph, sending a luminous plume of debris into space and allowing researchers to determine what the comet was made of. There was so much debris, in fact, that the spacecraft could not get a clear look at the impact crater.
By Thomas H. Maugh II
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-comet-encounter-20110212,0,6065082.story
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