The modern robotic investigation of comets began with a spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) named Giotto. Giotto captured in 1986 the first close-up images of a cometary nucleus and a wealth of other data. ESA is marking the 20th anniversary of Giotto’s successful flyby of Comet Halley on the eve of [...]
The sample-return capsule from the Stardust spacecraft landed early this morning in Utah, after gliding through the darkness across the West Coast of the United States. Inside the capsule is valuable cargo: [...]
The first mission to return cometary material to the Earth is now in its final hours of the mission. The Stardust spacecraft, visitor to Asteroid 5535 Annefrank and Comet Wild 2, crossed the [...]
Humanity improves the vision it turns on the universe in two ways: seeing farther than before and resolving greater detail. 2005 was a year of much more detail, of blurry bodies resolving into [...]
When the world’s foremost expert on impact cratering mentions that his preconceived notions about comets have changed at least twice in the past week, it is time to rewrite the book on the [...]
The Frontier Channel is proud to announce a brand new format for the RADIO Frontier Channel podcast. Because science and technology news is usually better presented visually, I will begin adding a presentation of images and movies you can click through while listening to the podcast. “Episode 09 – Let’s Bomb the Hell out [...]
Deep Impact Flyby took a look back at the devastation it wrought on Comet Tempel 1 and snapped a spectacular image of impact ejecta streaming out into space in a column that has [...]
Members of the Deep Impact team spoke to reporters early this morning about the success of their mission to Comet Tempel 1. About ten percent of the data has been downloaded from Flyby [...]
In a brilliant explosion, Deep Impact’s impactor spacecraft smashed into Comet Tempel 1 around 10:52 p.m. Pacific Standard Time today. The control room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Californa, [...]
There is not a lot of material in the coma of Comet Tempel 1, according to scientists after studying recent observations made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The space telescope saw a steady [...]