6. Close Encounter With a Comet

NASA’s Second Close Encounter With a Comet - nyt, February 13, 2011

Tempel 1 is a comet which NASA scientists are studying for a number of years. In 2005 Deep Impact spacecraft slammed a 820-pound projectile into its surface, and this year another spacecraft, Stardust, will fly very near this celestial body, just mere 125 miles from its surface. It will make 72 high-resolution photographs of the comet's surface. Using this kind of spacecraft for observation scientists are able to get direct answers to certain questions, like what's the nature of some depressions in the comet's surface, whether they're creatrs caused by impacts of results from undersurface explosions.

For me it's pretty amazing that this latest spacecraft, called Stardust, is already on its second mission. First time around it went to a comet Wild 2, collected samples of dust, returned to Earth orbit and released a canister containing the comet dust, which parachuted back to the ground. Now it continues its work traveling to yet another comet.