NASA’s Deep Space 1 probe flew past Comet Borrelly on Saturday. It plunged
into the 50,000-kilometre-wide cloud of dust and gas surrounding the comet at
16.5 kilometres per second. During the fly-by, Deep Space 1 analysed energetic
ions around the comet and gathered information on the comet’s composition. The
probe took close-up snaps of the comet’s nucleus from around 2200 kilometres
away. “This just worked perfectly,” says NASA’s Marc Rayman, the craft’s project
manager. “I honestly didn’t think it was up to the task.”
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