Space.com: The first photos of the comet Tempel 1 taken by NASA’s Stardust probe were released Monday. The probe flew to within 181 km of the comet and beamed home 72 high-resolution images of the encounter. Stardust‘s photos are the first close-up views of the comet in almost six years; in July 2005 NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft crashed a small probe into its icy surface to determine its composition. This may be Stardust‘s last mission, after having logged some 5.7 billion km during its 12 years in space.
