Slashdot Mirror
Deep Impact Probe to Look for Earth-sized Planets
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "NASA has given University of Maryland scientists the green light to fly the Deep Impact probe to Comet Hartley 2. The spacecraft will pass Earth on New Year's Eve at the beginning of a more than two-and-a-half-year journey to Hartley 2. During the first six months of the journey to Hartley 2, they will use the larger of the two telescopes on Deep Impact to search for Earth-sized planets around five stars selected as likely candidates for such planets. Upon arriving at the comet, Deep Impact will conduct an extended flyby of Hartley 2 using all three of the spacecraft's instruments — two telescopes with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer."
I'm glad that they are going to be hitting a couple of birds with the same stone. NASA really needs to get as much bang out of every buck as they can.
I'm frustrated that the pace of space exploration is so slow. There is so much we don't know about our own neighborhood. By now we should have an orbiter around every planet and major moon in this system, and the cost of doing so would be tiny in comparison to the data gathered.
I...I'm attacking the darkness!