Cosmic Blizzard During NASA Flyby of Comet Hartley 2

[n2doc]

Infrared scans of comet Hartley 2 by NASA's EPOXI mission spacecraft show carbon dioxide, dust, and ice being distributed in a similar way and emanating from apparently the same locations on the nucleus.

The EPOXI mission spacecraft revealed a cometary snow storm created by carbon dioxide jets spewing out tons of golf-ball to basketball-sized fluffy ice particles from the peanut-shaped comet's rocky ends. At the same time, a different process was causing water vapor to escape from the comet's smooth mid-section. This information sheds new light on the nature of comets and even planets.

Scientists compared the new data to data from a comet the spacecraft previously visited that was somewhat different from Hartley 2. In 2005, the spacecraft successfully released an impactor into the path of comet Tempel 1, while observing it during a flyby.

"This is the first time we've ever seen individual chunks of ice in the cloud around a comet or jets definitively powered by carbon dioxide gas," said Michael A'Hearn, principal investigator for the spacecraft at the University of Maryland. "We looked for, but didn't see, such ice particles around comet Tempel 1."




http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/11/-cosmic-blizzard-during-nasa-flyby-of-comet-hartley-2.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/epoxi/gallery-index.html