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Comet Lovejoy
Discovered on December 2, 2011, Comet Lovejoy is a member of the Kreutz family of sungrazing comets. Kreutz sungrazers are fragments of a single giant comet that broke apart in the 12th century. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory witnesses one falling into the Sun every few days. On December 15, Lovejoy survived a close pass by the Sun, much to the surprise of astronomers.
International Space Station commander Dan Burbank captured this image of Comet Lovejoy above the Earth’s horizon on December 21.
Image courtesy of ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory at NASA/JSC
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Grail
NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft launched September 10, 2011. Sent to study the Moon’s gravitational field, the twin spacecraft will fly in formation above the lunar surface and communicate with each other and Earth via radio links. The data they collect may help us better understand how Earth and the other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
The spacecraft entered lunar orbit over the New Year’s weekend. They will spend about two months reshaping and merging their orbits to get into formation, and the following 82 days mapping the Moon’s gravitational field.
Artist's concept courtesy of NASA/JPL. |
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Dawn at Vesta: Low Altitude Orbit
NASA's Dawn spacecraft captured this image, one of the first obtained from its low-altitude mapping orbit, of the asteroid Vesta on December 13, 2011. It reveals an area within Rheasilvia, a south polar basin. A young, dark blanket of material lies alongside a brighter deposit marked by craters. The dark material was probably ejected by an impact. The brighter material has crisscrossing linear features.
Vesta is the second largest asteroid in the belt between Jupiter and Mars. It is as big across as the state of Arizona, has a large impact crater at one end, and rotates about once every five hours. On July 16, 2011, Dawn became the first spacecraft to orbit Vesta. Dawn will spend one year studying Vesta before traveling to Ceres, the largest asteroid in the belt. It will reach Ceres in 2015.
Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA |
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