Jan 9 1986
From The Space Library
NASA reported that scientists observed Halley’s Comet from a University of Arizona telescope aboard NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a modified C-141 aircraft operated by NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. It was the first direct confirmation of water in a comet, and the discovery lent new support to astronomers' widely held theory that comets are "dirty snowballs" composed primarily of frozen water. The theory was conceived by Dr. Michael Mumma, head of the Planetary Systems Branch, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, who, together with Dr. Harold Weaver, an associate research scientist at the Center for Astrophysical Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, developed a theoretical model leading to this discovery. (NASA Release 86-4; W Post, Jan 10/86; B Sun, Jan 10/86; NY Times, Jan 10/86)
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