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Deep Space 1
meets comet Borrelly
Deep Space 1's risky encounter with comet Borrelly has gone extremely
well as the aging spacecraft successfully passed within 2,200 kilometers
(about 1,400 miles) of the comet at 22:30 Universal Time (3:30 p.m.
PDT) today. "The images and other data we collected from comet Borrelly
so far will help scientists learn a great deal about these intriguing
members of the solar system family," said Dr. Marc Rayman, project
manager of Deep Space 1 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It's
very exciting to be among the first humans to glimpse the secrets
that this comet has held since before the planets were formed."
Signals confirming the
successful encounter were received on Earth at 3:43 p.m. PDT, and
data containing the first clues to the composition of the comet
came a few hours after the close brush with the comet. Mission managers
confirmed that the spacecraft was able to use all four of its instruments
at Borrelly. Data will be returned over the next few days as the
spacecraft sends to Earth black-and-white pictures, infrared spectrometer
measurements, ion and electron data, and measurements of the magnetic
field and plasma waves around the comet.
Pictures of the comet
will be released after they are all sent to Earth in the next few
days. Several hours before the encounter, the ion and electron monitors
began observing the comet's environment. The action increased about
an hour and a half before the closest approach, when for two minutes
the infrared spectrometer collected data that will help scientists
understand the overall composition of the surface of the comet's
nucleus.
Deep Space 1 began taking
its black-and-white images of the comet 32 minutes before the spacecraft's
closest pass to the comet, and the best picture of comet Borrelly
was taken just a few minutes before closest approach, as the team
had planned. Two minutes before the spacecraft whizzed by the comet,
its camera was turned away so that the ion and electron monitors
could make a careful examination of the comet's inner coma the cloud
of dust and gas that envelops the comet.
Scientists on Deep Space
1 hope to find out the nature of the comet's surface, measure and
identify the gases coming from the comet, and measure the interaction
of solar wind with the comet. Deep Space 1 completed its primary
mission testing ion propulsion and 11 other advanced, high-risk
technologies in September 1999. NASA extended the mission, taking
advantage of the ion propulsion and other systems to undertake this
chancy but exciting encounter with the comet. More information can
be found on the Deep Space 1 home page at http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/
.
Deep Space 1 was launched
in October 1998 as part of NASA's New Millennium Program, which
is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.
(Press release and
Images from NASA)
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