Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2013/02/20 07:59 CST Professor Bell's
topic is "Exploring Mars, the Moon, Asteroids, and Comets with
Rovers and Landers," and there is no one better to talk about
this subject. Deep Impact has made the first space-based
observations of comet ISON. My collage of all the asteroids and
comets visited by spacecraft is probably the single most popular
image I have ever posted on this blog. I've now updated it to be
in color and to include Toutatis. A very interesting comet has
recently been discovered -- interesting because it will nearly
graze the Sun in August 2013 and then approach Earth closely the
following December. Whether it will turn out to be a great comet
is impossible to know.