Word: probe
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ferraro attributed her abstention solely to a 16-month-old Justice Department investigation into her financial background. The probe is focused on the funding of her initial 1978 House race and some of her financial disclosure statements while in office. In 1979 the Federal Election Commission fined her husband-campaign manager John Zaccaro and her committee $750 for arranging $130,000 in loans from her family, well in excess of the $1,000 legal limit allowed for individual contributors. The House Ethics Committee, which looked into Ferraro's failure to report fully her and her husband's incomes, found that...
Like dancers in an intricately choreographed ballet, each craft will perform a variety of tasks, complementing and aiding one another every thrust of the way. Japan's two probes, Sakigake (Pioneer) and Suisei (Comet), between them will study the solar wind and examine the hydrogen cloud surrounding the comet. The Soviet Union's Vega 1 and Vega 2 will analyze the abundant dust motes and charged gases that envelop the comet's nucleus. Most remarkable of all, data and pictures from the Vega twins will enable European scientists to chart Halley's course precisely enough to allow their probe, Giotto...
Although for budgetary reasons it opted in 1981 against launching a Halley's probe of its own, NASA nonetheless remains smack in the middle of the action. The agency plans to dedicate part of two shuttle missions, including the flight that will boost aloft Teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe, to comet- related experiments. The Solar Max satellite, brought back to life l8 months ago by a shuttle repair crew and now performing its normal duty of monitoring the sun, will examine Halley's off and on for about 60 days. Pioneer 12, in orbit around Venus, will watch Halley's when...
Indeed, Giotto's mission is by far the most grueling of the five. Looking rather like an oil drum with an upended beach umbrella stuck on top, the 5-ft. by 6-ft. probe was launched from Kourou, French Guiana, last July; as of last week it was 21 million miles from earth and nearly three times as far from Halley's. The little ship and everything on it are built for survival, and with good reason. The dust particles around the nucleus are expected to strike Giotto with such great velocity that a speck weighing a tenth...
Should the probe weather its many assaults, the rewards will be splendid. During its four-hour encounter, Giotto will explore the material streaming from the nearby nucleus with a total of ten experiments. As the craft revolves on its axis, a solid-state optical camera extending from the bottom rim like a bent stovepipe will snap a photograph once every four seconds. The pictures will be instantly transmitted to earth and shown live on television. Mass spectrometers will analyze the composition of the dust from the nucleus, and other instruments will examine the properties of the ions in detail...