PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA03506: Early Close Image of Comet Borrelly
 Target Name:  Borrelly
 Mission:  Deep Space 1 (DS1) 
 Spacecraft:  Deep Space 1
 Instrument:  Miniature Integrated Camera Spectrometer 
 Product Size:  500 x 500 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  United States Geological Survey  
 Addition Date:  2001-11-03
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA03506.tif (9.316 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA03506.jpg (3.677 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

The solid nucleus of comet Borrelly is barely resolved in this image, enhanced to reveal the highly collimated dust extending towards the bottom left corner of the picture. The jet is attributed to dust carried outward by gas expanding outwards into a cone about 20 degrees across. The surface of Borrelly is composed of a mixture of dust and water ice, and as the comet approaches the Sun the water ice sublimes. The gases produced inside the comet by the Sun's heating race away from the surface into the vacuum of space, carrying the dust away with them. The jet was also seen in images acquired around 9 hours earlier. This suggests that the emission is coming from close to the rotation axis at the comet's constantly illuminated pole. The Sun is at the bottom of the image.

Deep Space 1 completed its primary mission testing ion propulsion and 11 other advanced, high-risk technologies in September 1999. NASA extended the mission, taking advantage of the ion propulsion and other systems to undertake this chancy but exciting, and ultimately successful, encounter with the comet. More information can be found on the Deep Space 1 home page at http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/.

Deep Space 1 was launched in October 1998 as part of NASA's New Millennium Program, which is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
2001-11-03