Seven years ago NASA’s Deep Impact probe zipped past comet Tempel 1, shooting a barrel-sized slug into it to see what splashed out. A  second spacecraft, the well-traveled, 13-year-old  Stardust Mission with its primate aims already achieved will, following further orders, is about to  come near Tempel 1. Perhaps its photos will reveal Deep Impact’s scar or other recent changes.

If the advance stories from several major outlets  are any clue this may get substantial coverage . It does not hurt that NASA put out a press release on the rendezvous  calling attention to this not only happening, but being a Valentine’s Day rendezvous – even if it’s more miss than tryst.

Advance Stardust NExT Mission Stories:

• BBC – Jonathan Amos: Stardust spacecraft ready for comet flyby ;
• NY times – Kenneth Chang: NASA’s Second Close Encounter With a Comet ;
• Los Angeles Times – Thomas H. Maugh II: NASA spacecraft due for rendezvous with comet Tempel 1 ;
• AP – Alicia Chang :  NASA craft readies for Valentine comet encounter
• Pasadena Star News – Live coverage for NASA’s STardust-NExT Valentine’s ‘date’ with comet ;
• Space.com via MSNBC – Clara Moskowitz: Probe zeroes in on Valentine’s Day comet rendezvous ;
• Boulder Daily Camera – Kate Becker: A lonely spacecraft gets a second chance on Valentine’s Day ; Lay on the robot love schmaltz…
• ..More to come after the liaison is done.

Grist for the Mill:

NASA JPL Press Releases One, Two, Three ..

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.