European probes speed up thanks to Mars

The Rosetta space probe yesterday, Sunday, February 25 flew over 250 kilometers from Mars on the distant road to Comet Churumova - Gerasimenko. The meeting is expected to happen in 2014.

Mars's attractive school makes the ship speed up (Photo: ESA)

This movement is very important for the mission of the probe because the gravitational field of Mars will accelerate it. Some of the acceleration by this method will help the ship exceed 7 billion km on the road to meet the cosmic guest.

In the most important moment, within 15 minutes, the probe did not contact the Control Center because it was in the shadow of the Red Planet. During that time, the automatic machines on the ship's control compartment.

When the movement of the ship ended and communication was restored, at the European Space Flight Control Center there were applause.

This $ 1.2 billion probe was launched by European Aerospace in 2004. At the end of its path, it will drop a probe into the surface of Churyumov - Gerasimenko, the comet has. 4 km in diameter. If successful, it was the first man-made device to face a comet.

There are 5 devices on the ship to study the structure and material of comets. Scientists hope that the analysis of the comet's matter will help decipher many mysteries about the process of forming the solar system.

This year and in 2009, the aforementioned probes also made two moves to take advantage of the attractive field to accelerate. In both cases, acceleration agents are all earth.

The image illustrates the probe dropping the device
Comet surface (Photo: sciencedaily)

Thuy Vi