The giant 'peanut' in the universe

The first close-up shots of comets Hartley 2 sent by Deep Impact spacecraft show that this comet is shaped like a giant peanut.

Comet Hartley 2 in a photo sent by Deep Impact. Photo: NASA.

The New York Times reported that the Deep Impact spacecraft flew about 700 km from comet Hartley 2 at 10 am local time. This is the shortest distance between Hartley 2 and the spacecraft. According to AP , Deep Impact arrived at the closest location to Hartley 2 comet when it was about 21 million km from Earth. Soon the ship's high-speed antenna needs to be headed towards the earth so the spacecraft sends the pictures it captures to the control center in the US Aerospace Agency (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory ).

When the first picture appeared on the computer screen, the scientists only saw a small white dot because the ship was a few thousand kilometers away from the comet. A few hours later they received a second photo and saw a celestial-like celestial body. Dust and gas constantly erupt from its surface.

Scientists are interested in meteorites because they are remnants of the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. Researching them can help experts find useful information about the formation and evolution of planets, including the earth.

The Deep Impact spacecraft was launched into space on July 4, 2005 to fire a probe into the comet Tempel 1. The impact caused a dust cloud to shoot into space, allowing scientists to study The structure of comets. Then NASA continued to bring Deep Impact to Boethin comet in 2008, but they could not find it. Finally Hartley 2 became the new target of the ship. With a length of about 2.4 km, it is the smallest comet ever photographed at close range. While flying towards Hartley 2, the ship observed the planets with nearby planets for months.

Fox News said before the Deep Impact vessel flew close to the comet Hartley, humans had only taken a close-up shot of the comet four times.

Video of comet Hartley 2 was filmed from the spacecraft .