NASA's venerable Stardust spacecraft will on Valentine's Day burn its remaining fuel to approch and photograph comet Tempel 1, marking the end of a 12-year, 3.7 billion-mile odyssey. At 16:37 GMT, Stardust will pass within 124 miles of the comet, grabbing 72 "high-resolution images during the encounter", while attempting to " …

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Thursday 20th January 2011 15:17 GMT Anonymous Coward

While it's over that way...

... maybe they could take a few quick snaps of that other Earth.

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Thursday 20th January 2011 15:19 GMT Anonymous Coward

Beamed back pictures?

.

.

If the spacecraft is going to be "almost on the exact opposite side of the solar system" how is it going to immediately beam back images of Tempel 1? I'd have thought the sun might be a little bit in the way?

Can someone explain what I've misunderstood please?

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1. Thursday 20th January 2011 15:35 GMT Thecowking
  
  The sun's only in the way...
  
  ...If you're on or near the ecliptic.
  
  Presumably this will be a bit above or below the plane of the ecliptic and so we can get a signal from it.
  
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2. Thursday 20th January 2011 16:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Beamed back pictures?
  
  It's the opposite side but not exactly or in line with the sun (yet). It is approximately in line with Mercury at the the moment as viewed from Earth.
  
  This page ...
  
  http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/scnow.html
  
  and especially this diagram ...
  
  http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/stardust/mission/sc1.jpg
  
  shows the relationship quite well.
  
  I assume it will actually go behind the sun later on.
  
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Thursday 20th January 2011 15:35 GMT shakey

Z-axis

Comets' orbits are usually inclaned to the plane of the solar system, about 10 degrees in this case. Therefore the probe will be above or below the sun, and have line of sight with us.

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Thursday 20th January 2011 22:29 GMT Secret geek

Ermm...

Wouldn't going "head to head with a comet" kind of blow the chance of getting any pictures? Suppose it would double the chances of the next mission spotting a crater though.

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