NASA’s EPOXI mission is now only just over a month away from a flyby of Comet Hartley. At this stage, the flyby is expected to occur on 5 November 2010 at 12.02 am Australian Eastern Standard Time (add one hour if you live in a state or territory that follows daylight savings time).
The EPOXI spacecraft is expected to pass the nucleus of the comet at a distance of 700 kilometers and will be only the fifth time that a spacecraft has been close enough to image a comet’s nucleus (imagine a very dirty iceberg). This is the second time that this spacecraft has visited a comet. The first was Comet Tempel 1 in July 2005.
Information sourced from this NASA media release.
