Sentences with phrase «collected on the comet»

These particles probably collected on the comet's surface after its previous close swing by the sun six - and - a-half years ago.

Not exact matches

Combining high resolution images and infrared spectra collected during the probe's approach, a team of nearly two dozen scientists pinpointed three patches of water ice on the surface of the comet's «upper» half.

Stardust collected samples from comet Wild 2 a year ago and is scheduled to parachute onto the Utah desert on January 15, carrying its precious cargo.

In May, Drake Deming of NASA was collecting data he hoped might reveal a super-Earth in the habitable zone of a red dwarf (a small and relatively cool star) called Gliese 436; NASA had allowed him to use a spacecraft called Epoxi, which is on its way to a rendezvous with a comet, to observe several stars that are already known to have planets.

«Your backyard collected more comet dust over the last seven years than we did,» says Donald Brownlee of the University of Washington at Seattle, principal investigator on the Stardust mission.

However, the legacy of the comet will go on for years as scientists analyze the tremendous data set collected during ISON's journey.

It's been a busy time for NASA: Just before the first rover landed on Mars (page 10), the Stardust spacecraft achieved a dazzling double score, collecting pieces of comet Wild 2 (the first sample of a body beyond the moon) and sending back pictures of the comet's 3.1 - mile - wide icy core.

«It all begins with an observer making observations,» Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center, which collects data on asteroids and comets and calculates their orbits, told Space.com.