Free Birds flying over blue sky

et Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) was a Discovery-class space mission. It had as its primary objective close fly-bys of two comet nuclei with the possibility of a fly-by of a third known comet or an as-yet-undiscovered comet. The two comets scheduled to be visited were Encke and Schwassmann-Wachmann-3, and the third target was d'Arrest. It was hoped that a new comet would have been discovered that would have been in the inner solar system between 2006 and 2008, in which case the spacecraft trajectory would have been changed if possible to rendezvous with the new comet. Scientific objectives included imaging the nuclei at resolutions of 4 m, performing spectral mapping of the nuclei at resolutions of 100-200 m, and obtaining detailed compositional data on gas and dust in the near-nucleus environment, with the goal of improving our knowledge of the characteristics of comet nuclei. See more at Wikipedia.org...

>This article is about the insect. For other meanings, see Fly (disambiguation) As defined by entomologists, a fly (plural flies) is any species of insect of the order Diptera, some of which can land on food and transmit bacteria to humans. A few, like Ormia ochracea, have very advanced hearing organs. Flies are common amongst humans and have caused many diseases to spread in the past. The house-fly (Musca domestica) and mosquito are particularly common amongst humans. Other flies, such as the horse-fly (Family Tabanidae), can inflict painful bites. The larva of a fly is commonly called a maggot. See more at Wikipedia.org...