Jul 10 1980
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(New page: ESA announced that its science program committee had approved a major space first: sending a spacecraft to Halley’s Comet. The mission, called Giotto, would send a spacecraft...)
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ESA announced that its science program committee had approved a major space first: sending a spacecraft to Halley’s Comet. The mission, called Giotto, would send a spacecraft derived from the Goes design through the comet in 1986 at a speed of 70 kilometers. Objective of the mission would be to measure the substances (atmospheric, ionized particles, and dust) from the coma boiling off the nucleus under the effect of solar heating and to photograph the nucleus with an on-board camera. The payload would consist mainly of the camera and spectrometers for measuring atomic composition.
The Giotto mission was named for the "Adoration of the Magi" scene in a fresco in Padua's Arena Chapel done by Florentine artist Giotto di Bondone. The sky in the Adoration scene shows Halley’s Comet, which made one of its periodic 76-year appearances in 1301; Giotto was thus able to use it as a model for the Bethlehem star in his painting, completed in 1304. The fresco might be called the first scientific description of Halley’s Comet. (ESA Info 20)
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