The Space probe Giotto was the first to visit a comet up close. In 1986, it flew into Halley’s cornet and photographed the nucleus in incredible detail. It was able to gather data for almost 10 hours before dust and gas hitting the probe put the cameras out of action. From just 600km (373 miles) away, Giotto determined that Halley’s nucleus measures 15km by 8km (9 miles by 5 miles), and is made up of ice and dust.
Giotto was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft flew by and studied Halley’s Comet and in doing so became the first spacecraft to make close up observations of a comet. On 13 March 1986, the spacecraft succeeded in approaching Halley’s nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers. It was named after the Early Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley’s Comet in 1301 and was inspired to depict it as the star of Bethlehem in his painting Adoration of the Magi.
The spacecraft was derived from the GEOS research satellite built by British Aerospace in Filton, Bristol, and modified with the addition of a dust shield (Whipple shield) as proposed by Fred Whipple which comprised a thin (1 mm) aluminium sheet separated by a space and a thicker Kevlar sheet. The later Stardust spacecraft would use a similar Whipple shield. A mockup of the spacecraft resides at the Bristol Aero Collection hangar, at Filton, UK.
The Soviet Vega 1 started returning images of Halley on 4 March 1986, and the first ever of its nucleus, and made its flyby on 6 March, followed by Vega 2 making its flyby on 9 March. Vega 1’s closest approach to Halley was 8?889 km.
Giotto passed Halley successfully on 14 March 1986 at 596 km distance, and surprisingly survived despite being hit by some small particles. One impact sent it spinning off its stabilized spin axis so that its antenna no longer always pointed at the Earth, and its dust shield no longer protected its instruments. After 32 minutes Giotto re-stabilized itself and continued gathering science data. Another impact destroyed the Halley Multicolor Camera, but not before it took photographs of the nucleus at closest approach.
Picture Credit : Google