Two jets were observed in the close-up of Comet Hartley 2, taken by the Epoxy spacecraft

The higher resolution images are expected to arrive later this evening

The Epoxy spacecraft successfully passed the approach to Comet Hartley 2 today, November 4, at 16:00 Israel time. The spacecraft also transmitted the images about an hour later. Hartley 2 is the fifth comet to be visited by a spacecraft. One of the first surprises is the discovery of two jets, instead of the only jet in the area of ​​the double peanut-like asteroid, facing the Sun. Surprisingly, there was also a second jet (in the seven o'clock direction of the asteroid).

Scientists and control center personnel are now viewing never-before-seen images of the nucleus of Comet Hartley 2 on their computer screens. "We worked hard today," says Tim Larson, epoxy project manager at JPL - NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Good to see Hartley 2 up close."

Mission navigators work to determine the exact distance of the core from the spacecraft during approach. The original estimate spoke of a distance of about 700 kilometers. Eight minutes after the approach, which occurred at 15:59:47, the spacecraft's wideband antenna was aimed at Earth and began downloading data on the spacecraft's position, and other engineering data stored on the spacecraft's computers during the encounter. About twenty minutes later, the first images of the approach made 37 million kilometers away arrived from NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Goldstone, California.

"We're holding our breath to see what discoveries await us in the near future," said Epoxy's principal investigator, Michael Ahern of the University of Maryland.

Epoxy is a follow-up mission to the spacecraft previously called Deep Impact.