Feel Good Friday: Science is Fun Afterall!

Now, it's not often that I find myself interested in science or reading the science section of the news, but when I saw Katie Couric reporting this last night, I had to learn more.



Spacecraft snaps close-up images of comet

A spacecraft survived the closest encounter ever with a comet on Thursday, tracking it just 435 miles from the comet's nucleus.

Mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, broadcast live coverage of the event on NASA Television's Media Channel. Controllers broke into applause after hearing of the success.

The agency's EPOXI Deep Impact spacecraft was expected to use two imagers and an infrared instrument to acquire data about a tiny comet named Hartley 2 as it traveled at speeds of more than 27,000 miles per hour.

Scientists are still working to determine whether there was any damage to the spacecraft as the peanut-shaped comet passed by.

They hope to learn to more about comets from five images detailing the close approach.

"Those early images may not be the 'money shot,' but we on the science team will prize them just as well, as they will help us further understand the nature of comets," said EPOXI principal investigator Mike A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park, in a NASA statement. "We certainly have our hands full. The images are full of great cometary data, and that's what we hoped for."

The images are expected to depict the comet nucleus as little more than a point of light with a fuzzy coma, a gaseous cloud, surrounding it.

"It was just incredible," Ed Weiler, associate administrator of the Science Missions Directorate for NASA, said of the encounter.

Five years after NASA launched an 800-pound projectile into a comet in an effort to study its contents, the same spacecraft that launched the missile tracked Hartley 2 on Thursday.

It is the first spacecraft to have visited two comets.

NASA officials expressed hope that such missions will inspire young people to get into the field of space exploration.

Project manager Tim Larson, left, and deputy project manager Don Sweetnam celebrate as the first images from the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft come back

Another Article!!

If that picture doesn't make you smile, then you have no heart to feel good on Fridays!

This whole news story just kinda makes me feel like dancing. There's a whole world out there that is a complete mystery to even the smartest people in the world. I just want to tell them something.

Duh! This world we live in is an ABSOLUTELY confounding place. Weird, strange, and full of beauty. I can't wait to see what other beautiful things lay out there in the stars. Keep up the good work, Mr. Scientist Dudes!