NASA: It's snowing on our comet (photos)
NASA said analysis of the photos of Comet Hartley 2 which was visited by its EPOXI spacecraft on Nov. 4 show about 1-inch to 1-foot particles of snow shooting from the comet's surface. Plus, here's a photo gallery of the first images from Hartley 2.
Click on any image to enlarge.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD/Brown
A high-resolution photo of the comet's nucleus shows a cloud of individual particles.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
It's a snowstorm. NASA says the particles range in size from a golf ball to a basketball and are porousand fluffy.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
Medium resolution images confirm the cloud's existance.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
In this image a star's straight path is marked in red while individual snow particles have a more random movement.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
If you've got red-blue tinted glasses (red in front of the left eye) you can see this in 3D. Circles indicate individual particles.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
Infrared scans show carbon dioxide, dust, and ice from the same locations of the nucleus. Water vapor is seen in a different region.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
EPOXI's last mission had it fly past comet Tempel 1 and send a loaded impactor to explode on its surface. Temple 1 is about 5 time larger than Hartley 2 is about 1.4 miles long while Tempel 1 is about 4.7 miles long. At the time, EPOXI was called Deep Impact but was renamed after it was assigned a new mission.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
This image was taken about 500 miles from the comet. The neck is about 0.25 miles wide.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD
An artist's drawing of EPOXI closing in on Hartley 2.
An artist shows what Deep Impact must have looked like as it flew past Tempel 1 in 2005.