Deep Impact and Stardust: still on assignment.Two old NASA missions This is a list of NASA missions, both manned and unmanned, since its establishment in 1958. Human spaceflight NASA has successfully accomplished many human space missions. have new lives. The agency's Deep Impact mission, which 2 years ago fired a projectile projectile something thrown forward. projectile syringe see blow dart. projectile vomiting forceful vomiting, usually without preceding retching, in which the vomitus is thrown well forward. into Comet Tempel Comet Tempel may mean:
Deep Impact doesn't have another bullet in its arsenal but will fly peaceably peace·a·ble adj. 1. Inclined or disposed to peace; promoting calm: They met in a peaceable spirit. 2. Peaceful; undisturbed. to Boethin, getting to within 700 kilometers of the object on Dec. 5, 2008, so it can obtain close-up images. This year, en route to the comet, the spacecraft will study several nearby, bright stars known to have massive, orbiting planets. Deep Impact will search for periodic variations in starlight as the planets pass in front of and behind their parent stars. The variations may reveal not only the size and composition of the Jupiter-size planets but also, whether they possess rings, moons, or Earth-size companions (SN: 7/14/07 p. 24). The Stardust star·dust n. 1. A dreamlike, romantic, or uncritical sense of well-being. 2. A cluster of stars too distant to be seen individually, resembling a dimly luminous cloud of dust. Not in scientific use. 3. mission, which early in 2006 dispatched to Earth material that it collected from the shroud of Comet Wild 2, also has a new assignment. In 2011, the craft will fly past Deep Impact's old target, Tempel 1. Stardust will look for changes in the comet's nucleus since the body's last dose passage to the sun.--R.C. |
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