Wednesday, December 14, 2011

NASA Developing Comet Harpoon For Sample Return

Posted by Soulskill  

from the thar-she-blows dept.
An anonymous reader writes"NASA appears to have decided that the best way to grab a sample of a rotating comet that is racing through the inner solar system at up to 150,000 miles per hour while spewing chunks of ice, rock and dust may be to avoid the risky business of landing on it. Instead, researchers want to send a spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet, then fire a harpoon to rapidly acquire samples from specific locations with surgical precisionwhile hovering above the target."

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