About Browse shows Sign in Get started free
The Sky at Night
BBC Four

S30E03: Halley's Comet: The Encounter

The Sky at Night · 1986
Aired 13 Mar 1986 at 9:00pm (UTC)
No ratings yet

Synopsis

Tonight's news from the comet comes as Europe's Giotto spacecraft plunges deep into the glowing dust and gases of its coma. At 47 miles per second, every grain of dust strikes like a bullet. Will Giotto be destroyed by that deadly hail, or will it win through, to send back the first pictures of the mysterious object at the heart of Halley's Comet? Horizon and The Sky at Night join forces, with Patrick Moore reporting from mission control at Darmstadt in West Germany, and James Burke at Greenwich, where Edmond Halley was Britain's second Astronomer Royal.

← Back to 1986