Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Entered orbit around 67P at 09:06 UTC on 6 August 2014. On 30 September 2016 mission ended in an attempt to slow land on the comet's surface near a 130 m (425 ft) wide pit called Deir el-Medina. Ariane 5G+ Philae: 2 March 2004: ESA / DLR Germany: 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko: Lander Successful: Carried by Rosetta.
Flyby; discovered Dactyl; first asteroid with a moon visited by a spacecraft, largest asteroid visited by spacecraft at the time. 253 Mathilde: 66 × 48 × 46 (58 km) 1885 NEAR Shoemaker: 1997 1,212: 49.5 Flyby; largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft at the time. 433 Eros: 34 × 11 × 11 (17 km) 1898 NEAR Shoemaker: 1998–2001 landed: landed
The JPL mission designers planned multiple launches in each block, to maximize the engineering experience and scientific value of the mission and to assure at least one successful flight. [14] Total research, development, launch, and support costs for the Ranger series of spacecraft (Rangers 1 through 9) was approximately $170 million. [15]
One further focus of such investigation—besides the basic composition and geologic history of the various Solar System bodies—is the presence of the building blocks of life on comets, asteroids, Mars or the moons of the gas giants. Several sample-return missions to asteroids and comets are currently in the works.
Galileo 's prime mission was a two-year study of the Jovian system, but on March 26, 1993, while it was en route, astronomers Carolyn S. Shoemaker, Eugene M. Shoemaker and David H. Levy discovered fragments of a comet orbiting Jupiter, the remains of a comet that had passed within Jupiter's Roche limit and had been torn apart by tidal forces.
The Apollo 12 Lunar Module Intrepid prepares to descend towards the surface of the Moon. 1969 NASA photo by Richard F. Gordon Jr. The physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made a deliberate impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of ...
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
His research focuses on the chemistry and mineralogy of asteroids and comets as determined by in situ laboratory analyses and spacecraft observations. This work is important for constraining the chemistry of the solar nebula, understanding the origin of complex organic molecules in the early Solar System, and constraining the initial chemical inventories of the terrestrial planets.