comet Hallie is making its regular 76
year pilgrimage around our Sun as it has
been doing for countless centuries the
comet is the target of study for five
exploratory spacecraft from Europe Japan
and the Soviet Union
each quizzing by the giant snowball of
ice gas and dust from different vantage
points the European Space Agency's
Giotto spacecraft will be the most
daring probe by taking a flight path
just 300 miles in front of the Comets
head Johto hopes to photograph the
comet's nucleus to other highly
instrumented Soviet spacecraft Vega 1
and Vega 2 are scheduled to fly by the
comet at a distance of six thousand
miles hoping also to obtain images of
the comet's nucleus lastly two japanese
spacecraft studying halle our planet aid
which approaches the Sun would side of
Halle at a distance of 120 thousand
miles and Sakigake which will pass about
4 million miles from the comet a list of
other American spacecraft slated for
study of the comet includes Astro one
the Spartan Valley platform both will be
maintained by the Space Shuttle the
solar maximum mission satellite pioneer
Venus and the International cometary
Explorer in order to get the best use
out of all the research being done on
the common
amateur and professional astronomers
from 47 different countries have joined
forces the Howey encounter is a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to study one
of the most primitive objects in our
solar system a program dedicated to
visiting some of the planets in our
solar system with two unmanned probes
has had a history of success ever since
its beginning in 1977 Voyager 1 and
Voyager 2 were both launched now having
logged nearly 2 billion miles in space
since 1977 Voyager 2 will point its
sensors and TV cameras at a planet we
have never seen up close Uranus Voyager
project scientist dr. Edward stone
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena California well there are
several unique things about Uranus first
of all it's the most remote planet that
we will we will have visited in the
Solar System it formed in a much colder
region of the solar nebula and therefore
is made of different materials than
either Jupiter or Saturn so we will be
studying the different properties of
Uranus and its satellites the other
interesting thing about Uranus is that
it's tipped over on its side with its
spin axis at this time basically
pointing at the Sun so it's it has a
much different orientation with respect
to the Sun many questions will be
answered during the encounter before the
tiny one-ton spacecraft ventures even
further into our solar system to visit
the eighth planet from the Sun Neptune
you