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The NASA Stardust spacecraft made a successful flyby of asteroid Annefrank on Nov 2 reports NASA. The flyby was designed to test Stardust’s instruments in preparation for its encounter with Comet Wild 2 in 2004. The mission will collect dust from the comet and return it to the Earth for study in 2006 and has already been collecting dust from outside the Solar System on route.
Some scientific data, including low resolution images, were obtained by Stardust of asteroid Annefrank as it passed within 3,300 kilometres of the 4 km wide asteroid at 2050 GMT. The data is due to be transmitted back to mission controllers by the spacecraft over the next week.
More info: Stardust Mission
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