Holy interplanetary snowstorm! This image, a focused (“deconvolved”) view of comet Hartley 2 which was approached by NASA’s EPOXI spacecraft on November 4, shows a swarm of specks surrounding an ice-spraying, boulder-crusted nucleus. Those specks aren’t stars, they’re golfball- to basketball-sized balls of loosely-packed ice particles… a.k.a snowballs! And comet Hartley-2 is literally surrounded by them…
Tag: hartley 2
A Smooth Approach to Hartley 2
The video above was created by Daniel Macháček (of UnmannedSpaceflight.com fame) and shows a smoothed-out version of Deep Impact’s (d.b.a. EPOXI) now-world-famous pass of Comet 103P/Hartley 2 on November 4, 2010. Using Squirlz Morph freeware he was able to use five close-up images from the spacecraft and turn them into an animation that portrays a very…
Visiting a Comet
They’re calling it a “peanut with jets”…Comet Hartley 2, discovered 26 years ago by astronomer Malcolm Hartley, received a brief but fascinating visit today by NASA’s EPOXI spacecraft at 10:01 am EDT. Images were received on Earth half an hour later, and I assembled these initial 5 close-ups into the rough animation above. (Click to…
Lights in the Dark 