Probe sweeps past 'space peanut' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Nasa's Deep Impact probe has flown by Comet Hartley 2.

The first pictures revealed a roughly 1.5km-long, peanut-shaped object with jets of gas streaming from its surface.

The pass, which occurred about 23 million km from Earth, was only the fifth time a spacecraft had made a close approach to a comet.

Nasa said it would take many hours to retrieve all of the data recorded by Deep Impact's two visible-light imagers and one infrared sensor.

But the initial pictures to get to ground gave a fascinating view of the comet's icy body, or nucleus.



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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11674694

http://epoxi.umd.edu/

[shireen]

1. that is just utterly incredible

I was so excited when i saw those photos. A tiny little comet with big glowing jets! Cool!

[Nihil]

2. Neat photo ...

... even if it did remind me of an upside-down Serenity (the ship from Firefly)!
:wow:

[Ian David]

3. Shiny!

[Posteritatis]

4. ... Can't unsee it! (nt)