Deep Impact spacecraft's first glimpse of Comet Hartley 2

It will use all three of the spacecraft's instruments (two telescopes with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer) to scrutinize Hartley 2 for more than two months.

"Like any tourist who can't wait to get to a destination, we have already begun taking pictures of our comet -- Hartley 2," said Tim Larson, the project manager for EPOXI from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We have to wait for Nov. 4 to get the close-up pictures of the cometary nucleus, but these approach images should keep the science team busy for quite some time as well."

The imaging campaign, along with data from all the instruments aboard Deep Impact, will afford the mission's science team the best extended view of a comet in history during its pass through the inner solar system. With the exception of one, six-day break to calibrate instruments and perform a trajectory correction maneuver, the spacecraft will continuously monitor Hartley 2's gas and dust output for the next 79 days.

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 13:30 UTC. The comet was 60 million kilometers (37.2 million miles) from the spacecraft when the set of images were taken. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Maryland

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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