Spacecraft has closest encounter ever with comet


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(CNN) -- A spacecraft survived the closest encounter ever with a comet on Thursday, tracking it just 435 miles (700 kilometers) 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.

The agency's EPOXI spacecraft is expected to acquire data with two imagers and an infrared instrument of a comet named Hartley 2 as it traveled at speeds of more than 27,000 mph (43,450 kph).

Scientists are still working to determine if there was any damage to the spacecraft as the comet passed by. They hope to learn more about comets from images detailing the close approach.

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Awesome, what always amazes me is how they manage to do the mathematics to get something that close to something so small in such a vast area.

Of course if you are not amazed by them doing it you probably don't understand the vastness, and how small the target is. At that kind of speeds you have to be incredibly accurate.

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its going to be nice to see more images once they are released. perhaps there is a space mcdonalds on this thing you never know lol :p

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I'm amazed by the shape of the comet.

I thought it would be more ball-shaped or tear-drop. ;)

Me too, I think media has made us expect it to be more round

It is quite a cool shape though, and from that distance looks quite smooth, considering

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I'm amazed by the shape of the comet.

I thought it would be more ball-shaped or tear-drop. ;)

Considering it is a lump solid matter that broke off something it does not surprise me, in order to become round it would need to be large enough to generate its own field, or go through some kind of atmosphere.

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