EPOXI rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2 coming soon! Watching coverage on NASA TV

[Ian David]

EPOXI rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2 coming soon! Watching coverage on NASA TV - http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
http://twitter.com/NoisyAstronomer/status/29669257400

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EPOXI comet mission expects big surprises

By William Atkins
Thursday, 04 November 2010 22:31

Science - Space
Page 1 of 3
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The NASA EPOXI mission to Comet Hartley 2 is a big unknown to NASA scientists. It spurts out poisonous cyanide gas and dust. A lot of it, and this is a mystery. We’re about to find out more about the comet with a close encounter on November 4, 2010.

At 9:50 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), the spacecraft used for the Deep Impact mission, renamed EPOXI, will fly within 435 miles (700 kilometers) of Comet Hartley 2 on Thursday, November 4th.

Scientists have visited comets before, four of them in all (Halley, Tempel 1, Borrelly, and Wild 2), in fact. However, this spacecraft is doing something unique. This is the second one it has visited.

The Deep Impact spacecraft visited Comet Tempel 1 in January 2005. Part of it was crashed into the comet on July 4, 2005, so that scientists could see what materials spewed from the body.

The other part of the spacecraft was given another mission and name. Renamed EPOXI, the spacecraft was sent to a second comet: Comet Hartley 2, officially known as 103P/Hartley 2.

More:
http://www.itwire.com/science-news/space/42937-epoxi-comet-mission-expects-big-surprises

[MineralMan]

1. Thanks for posting this. I'm watching now.

They're five minutes from starting to receive images. Apparently they got a bunch of them, with no errors. I'll keep the feed in the background until I can look at something.

[Ian David]

2. That A'Hearn dude stole James Randi's beard.

[MineralMan]

4. Yeah. My beard is very similar to that one, but a bit longer.

It's not quite as white, though. I still have a small patch in front that has some color in it. Pretty soon, though, I'll be an old whitebeard.

[Ian David]

3. Those gloves are a little overkill for dry ice. n/t

[MineralMan]

5. Too cool. Their projections of the shape from the earlier stuff

were right on. A peanut.

[Ian David]

6. That was funny-- one of them thought the cursor was a feature on the comet. n/t