NASA Deep Impact Spacecraft Flies By Small Comet Hartley 2. (Earth, new)

[PITTSTON2SARASOTA]

On Thursday the Deep Impact spacecraft flew within 435 miles of the nucleus of Comet Hartley 2; the encounter was approximately 13,000,000 miles from Earth. The comet is 1.4 miles across and weighs 280 million metric tons.

This was the second mission for this probe, initially it hurled a copper impactor into comet Tempel 1 on July 4,2005. There was enough fuel remaining onboard for this second mission; apparently there is not enough fuel for another flyby but there may be enough for another mission. Here are some links.

NASA Deep Impact spacecraft flies by small comet | General Headlines | Comcast.net (http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20101104/US.SCI.Comet.Encounter/ - broken link)

NASA Deep Impact spacecraft flies by small comet | Latest News Stories | Comcast.net

NASA - EPOXI Mission - Home

NASA Mission Successfully Flies by Comet Hartley 2 - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA - EPOXI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(space_mission)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EhUOxYUPP8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3b48u3qQ0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByctW...eature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hTve...eature=related.