Check out the official website for the latest science results. Unfortunately, a parachute failure caused the capsule to crash into the desert floor and much, though not all of the data was lost. On JanuStardust released its Sample Return Capsule (SRC) into Earth�s atmosphere to descend over a U.S. One is a plasma trail, which draws a straight line like a broomstick. The goal of the mission was to collect and store dust and carbon-based samples while flying nearest to the comet. We can observe two types of comet tail that reflect the light spectrum differently. After a gravity-assist from Earth and nearly 4 years of space travel, the Stardust spacecraft reached its primary target, the comet Wild-2. Comets have two tails because escaping gas and dust are. The mission included a flyby of the asteroid Annefrank where the spacecraft took pictures and measurements of the mountain-sized rock. Comet tails point away from the Sun, regardless of the direction in which the comet is traveling. It was the first mission dedicated entirely to the exploration of a comet, and the first mission to bring back material from outside the orbit of the Moon. The Stardust spacecraft was launched on February 7, 1999, and returned safely to Earth on January 15, 2006. This is a composite of a short exposure image, taken to reveal the surface detail, overlain on a long exposure image which shows jets streaming out from the tremendously active surface Most comets actually have 2 tails: a plasma tail made of ionized gas, and a dust tail made of small solid particles. The tail consists of gas and dust that can extend hundreds of millions of kilometers away from the coma.The coma is a large, dusty atmosphere surrounding the nucleus, made up of sublimated gas mixed with dust. The comet nucleus is the dirty snowball that is essentially the entire comet when it is frozen and far from the Sun.Solar heat warms the comet, giving it the following anatomy: A comet's appearance changes as it approaches the Sun. Comet Hyakutake, seen right, came as close as 9.3 million miles of Earth in March 1996.Ĭomets are completely frozen when they are far from the Sun, and most are just a few kilometers across. The few that occasionally venture inward warm up as they get closer to the Sun and grow the long tails that we characteristically see as they flash through the sky. Most comets remain undetected frozen balls of ice in the outer reaches of our solar system.
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