Comet Hartley 2 Flyby – “Just spectacular”

Here’s a wondrous short video of the recent flyby of Comet Hartley 2 by the Nasa/JPL EPOXI Mission using 40 images taken from Deep Impact’s Medium-Resolution Instrument during the encounter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD/Brown University. And the EPOXI Mission scientists present their preliminary findings at a press conference.  Video via NASAtelevision. Pete Baker

Deep Impact Spies Comet Target

Nasa’s Deep Impact probe was redirected towards comet 103P/Hartley at the start of 2008 as part of the EPOXI mission – see post from the time.  On Sunday 5th September the probe opened its eyes and took the first of more than 64,000 images its expected to take of Comet Hartley 2 [Image credit: NASA/JPL/UM].  On 4th November Deep Impact [EPOXI] will fly within 700km of the comet, which might at some point become visible to the naked eye.  It will spend 21 …

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