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Where's north? Defining Tempel 1's poles

Filed under explaining science, comets, comet Tempel 1, mapping

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Where's north? Defining Tempel 1's poles Tempel 1 with the nucleus coordinate system superimposed. Because the flyby spacecraft flew under the nucleus, we can see the negative pole. The positive pole is just over the horizon at upper right. The positive pole is defined by the right hand rule (based on direction of spin). In this case it is also pointing into the north ecliptic hemisphere and can therefore also be called the north pole.

NASA / UMD / Cornell / Peter Thomas

Public domain

This image is in the public domain. Original image data dated on or about September 25, 2006

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