PIA13374: Deep Impact Spacecraft's First Glimpse of Comet Hartley 2


Deep Impact Spacecraft’s First Glimpse of Comet Hartley 2

Caption:

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This first image of comet 103P/Hartley 2 was taken from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft 60 days prior to the spacecraft's flyby of the comet.

Seven successive one-minute exposures taken by the spacecraft's Medium Resolution Imager were combined to make this single image. The exposures were taken on Sept 5 beginning at about 6:30 a.m. PDT (9:30 a.m. EDT, 13:30 UTC). The comet was 60 million kilometers (37.2 million miles) from the spacecraft when the set of images were taken.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target 103P/Hartley 9P/Tempel
System Periodic Comets
Target Type Comet
Mission Deep Impact
Instrument Host Deep Impact
Host Type Impactor
Instrument Medium Resolution Instrument (MRI)
Detector
Extra Keywords Grayscale, Impact
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2010-09-08
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Maryland
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13374
Identifier PIA13374