alokatransducer

This morning just after 11:40pm EST (Cleveland time), a NASA's Stardust space probe will fly by Comet Tempel 1 at a speed of about 6 miles per second! If all goes according to plan, the probe will snap photos that will be able to tell astronomers how much the nucleus of the comet has changed since it was first visited by the Deep Impact probe in 2005, which, during the intervening years, saw the comet make two passes by the Sun. For NASA (and the earth), this is the first follow up visit to a comet. Way back in July, 2005, Tempel 1 was visited by the Deep Impact/EPOXI space probe, which sent an impacting sub probe into the nucleus of the comet. The shower of debris thrown off the comet and into space was then studied by the main probe itself as well as by ground based telescopes. In addit…