It was a fantastic week for those whose minds tend to wander off-planet. The main event was the long-awaited rendezvous of the intrepid voyager Stardust and comet Tempel 1. Please join us below the fold for more highlights, news and images.
In the week since the launch of DK4, some of us Kossacks who also are space buffs have started finding each other in the new Astro Kos group. (Please Follow us, if you're not already doing so - and ask to Join if you'd like to contribute diaries to the Astro Kos stream. The more the merrier!)
For most of the week, in fact, Astro Kos was actually one of the larger and more active groups on the DK4 list. I think this was due to the remarkable images (and sounds - see below) coming from Stardust on Monday and Tuesday. In addition to the above animation (produced by Daniel Macháček by morphing a dozen or so flyby images), we've seen some great photos that reveal changes in the comet since Deep Impact visited in 2005. Scientists even spotted the impact crater left by that spacecraft's probe. And as a bonus, a plastic shield on the spacecraft gave us the sounds of passing by a comet, by recording the vibrations from hits by the snowy lumps of comet ejecta.
Not surprisingly, Emily Lakdawalla provided excellent Stardust coverage on her blog at the Planetary Society, including this comprehensive mission wrap-up .
In other news:
* A profile shot of Saturn's Mimas reveals just how big its main feature - a giant crater - really is: big enough to have dented the entire moon.
* Our sun Sol let off an enormous X-class flare, causing aurorae and disrupting communications on Earth
* The Messenger spacecraft, closing in on its mission objective of an orbit of Mercury (March 18 insertion), provided a "family portrait" of our solar system from the inside out.
* The Mars rover Opportunity reported itself to be in good health after a few weeks of no communication (as predicted - as Mars passed behind the Sun, from Earth's perspective).