NASA's Deep Impact Begins Hunt for Alien Worlds

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft is aiming its largest telescope at five stars in a search for alien (exosolar) planets as it enters its extended mission, called Epoxi.

Deep Impact made history when the mission team directed an impactor from the spacecraft into comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. NASA recently extended the mission, redirecting the spacecraft for a flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Oct. 11, 2010.

As it cruises toward the comet, Deep Impact will observe five nearby stars with "transiting exosolar planets," so named because the planet transits, or passes in front of, its star. The Epoxi team, led by University of Maryland astronomer Michael A'Hearn, directed the spacecraft to begin these observations Jan. 22. The planets were discovered earlier and are giant planets with massive atmospheres, like Jupiter in our solar system. They orbit their stars much closer than Earth does the sun, so they are hot and belong to the class of exosolar planets nicknamed "Hot Jupiters."

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EPOXI will make three gravity assist flybys of Earth between its encounters with 9P/Tempel and 103P/Hartley. The first has already taken place (2007 December 31), and the next two will be on 2008 December 30 and 2009 December 29.

I can simulate all three flybys (and many more fascinating spacecraft encounters with the planets) on my PC using Dance of the Planets (ARC Science Simulations; www.arcscience.com).


[edit on 10-2-2008 by Mogget]