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Stardust Apparently Successful
Naomi_the_butterfly writes "The Stardust mission, a craft launched in February 1999, just concluded its encounter with comet Wild 2 at 11:40:35 am PST. The encounter went without a hitch, with about 72 images taken and comet coma (tail) dust collected! The first images will be downloaded to JPL over between 1:30 and 2:30 pm, in time for a press conference at 3:00 pm PST. Today a comet, tomorrow Mars!" Space.com has a picture taken by the spacecraft.
Oops, I was going to use that line when we landed on Mars.
They spent HOW much to only get THAT little bit of TAIL?
To protect Stardust against the blast of expected cometary particles and rocks, the spacecraft rotated so it was flying in the shadow of its "Whipple Shields"
Please don't squeeze the Charmin!
Yeah, it's the small things that make the difference with those Mars probes. Like landing, oh, say... upright? Pointing in the right direction? In one piece?
Hello Andromeda Strain!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Apparently? It returned pictures, but was only apparently successful?
Are we suggesting that the Stardust mission was faked, like the moon landing?
Shocking. Will the lies never stop? Even more damning evidence found here.
philcrissman.com.
No sig, sorry.
I got bored, googled the distance to be an average of 48 million miles. Converted 3e8 m/s to 671,080,888 mph (also used google. I love that site) and did the math to equal 4.29 minutes!
I'm amazed that you just happened to have that 5 minute number memorized. Do you think if we put a carbon fiber hood and an aluminum wing on light it would go even faster?
No, but I bet it would go faster if you gave it a Type-R sticker and an exhast the size of a cantalopue.
Tired of legitimate data sources? Try UNCYCLOPEDIA
Just for safety I hope NASA has a clean room containing an old drunk and a crying baby. They'll be our only hope if there's any space-born virus brought back!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
or crash 'n burn like the beagle.
Beagle burned? This is BIG. There're Oxygen in mars's atmosphere! Thoe bloody aliens have obviously been jamming our spectrometers all this time.
You're forgetting one key fact-
There are no Martians on comets, so there was no one to shoot this one down.
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
Who did space.com pay to put the caption right in the URL?!
g _d isplay.php?pic=h_wild2-comet_02.jpg&cap=Your%20Bal ls%20Are%20Filthy%20---%20Go%20Wash%20Them%20Beavi s
I like this caption to the WILD2 photo over the original:
http://space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/im
------------------------------
Ray Raspberry
raspberry@b3l33t.org
It looks surprised to see the spacecraft.
o o
O
Can anyone say Andromeda Strain?
will Jerry Bruckheimer be inside the projectile? Because that would be poetic justice, really.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
... and multi-colored LEDs on the fans and a plexiglass window...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I have always interpreted that one as the Universe giving us the finger.
//FIXME: Bad
What gives me a giggle about the thing, is whether or not it will be successful. I mean, look at the multitude of Mars missions that have attempted a landing and then failed and crashed. So, since we seem to be so good at crashing things, will "Deep Impact" be successful at crashing too? Or will it fail with a spectacular, "Damnit, we missed!" as the probe goes sailing back out into oblivion? :) Or even worse, that it might land with a soft touchdown (chuckle).
Elonka :)