Photos: Comet Hartley 2 Up Close

Space Pickle? Bowling Pin? Comet Hartley 2 Takes Curious Shape

Twelve radar images of the nucleus of Comet Hartley 2, taken by the Arecibo Observatory from Oct. 25 to 27, 2010.

Comet Hartley 2 Fires Out Poison Gas as NASA Probe Nears

Discovery image of Comet Hartley 2, which Malcolm Hartley found in 1986.

Poor Little Greenie

Comet Hartley 2 was still too faint to be seen with the unaided eye when it was captured in this photograph at a distance of about 18 million miles from Earth on Sept. 28, 2010 by NASA astronomer Bill Cooke.

Twin Fireballs May Have Come From Comet Hartley 2

These two fireballs with orbits similar to the comet Hartley 2 were observed on Oct. 16. 2010 by cameras in western Ontario (left) and the southeastern USA (right). The fireballs may have been caused by meteors from the comet.

Comet Hartley 2 Gets Visit from Deep Impact Spacecraft

NASA's Deep Impact probe took this image of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 2, 2010, from a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The white blob and the halo around it are the comet's outer cloud of gas and dust, called a coma. At this distance, the spacecraft captures images with a resolution of about 23 kilometers/pixel (14 miles/pixel).

Comet Hartley 2 Encounters The Moon

Comet Hartley 2\'s path on the sky makes it appear especially close to the Moon on October 28th 2010.