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In General
Special Comets and Other
Topics (for Oort
Cloud, see overview page)
- Great Comets in History: NASA-JPL page.
- Tycho's 1577 Comet: High Altitude Observatory page.
- Comet Hale-Bopp: NASA page;
NOVA online page;
Stanford page
on hydrogen cloud.
- Comet Hyakutake: NASA page;
NOVA online page.
- Comet Wirtanen: Cometography.com page.
- Cometary Dust: NASA Stardust page.
References
- J.C. Brandt & R.D. Chapman, Introduction to Comets,
2nd ed, Cambridge University Press 2003.
- R. Burnham, Great Comets, Cambridge University Press
2000.
- J. Crovisier & T Encrenaz, Comet Science: The Study
of Remnants from the Birth of the Solar System, Cambridge
University Press 2000.
Observation Projects
- Spacewatch
Project: A survey of the whole solar system, from
the vicinity of the Earth's orbit all the way out to beyond the
orbit of Neptune, coordinated by the University of Arizona. This
project is one of four or five around the world that regularly
scan the sky electronically for asteroids and comets, and.the
first automated one, that scans the sky as opposed to comparing
photographic plates.
- Ulysses
Comet Watch: A network set up by the University
of Colorado's LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics).
Past and Present Missions (Planetary Society overview page)
- CONTOUR
(Comet Nucleus Tour): NASA mission launched in July 2002 for
encounters with comets starting in 2003, to compare the surface
properties of comet Encke and two others of very different types,
in order to understand evolutionary effects; contact with it
was lost in Aug 2002.
- Giotto:
Launched in July 1985, flew by comet Halley in March 1986 (JPL
page).
- Deep Space 1:
NASA mission launched Oct 1998; tested ion propulsion system
and other new technologies; met asteroid Braille in Jul 1999,
and comet Borrelly on 22 Sep 2001; was turned off in Dec 2001
(images
at space.com).
- Deep Space 4
/ Champollion: Mission that was to be launched in 2003 and
included a comet lander; cancelled in 1999 due to budget constraints.
- Deep Impact:
NASA mission, launched in January 2005, arrived to comet 9P/Tempel
1 in July and fired an impactor at it; Its goal was to compare
the surface properties of the nucleus with the deep interior,
to separate surface evolutionary effects from primordial properties.
- Stardust: NASA
mission to comet Wild-2; Launched in 1999, met Wild-2 in Jan 2004 and
returned comet samples to Earth in Jan 2006 (Science summary videos).
Ongoing Missions
- Rosetta:
ESA mission; Was to be launched in Jan 2003, reach comet
46P/Wirtanen in 2011, land on its nucleus and probe it to a depth
of about one meter (see Jun 2001 article);
Was postponed and launched in Mar 2004; Is expected to land on
comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 (see Jan 2004 article).
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