Ritorno della cometa Halley
Stato: Mauritania Anno: 1986 Notizie: On October 14, 1986 Mauritania issued several stamps commemorating the return of Comet P/Halley, better known as Halley's Comet. One of these stamps, Scott catalog number 620, portrays the British astronomer Sir William Huggins (1824-1910) and the launch of the Giotto spacecraft atop the Ariane rocket. Huggins helped to develop the combined use of the telescope, spectroscope, and photography. He died in 1910, the year of the previous passage of Halley's Comet through the inner solar system. The European Space Agency launched Giotto to intercept Halley's Comet. On March 13, 1986 Giotto passed within 596 km of Halley's nucleus and returned the first close-up photos of a comet nucleus. Later in 1992 the spacecraft passed within 200 km of Comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup. |
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