We humans have been busy lately... there are a lot of spacecraft buzzing around the solar system. Sure, you've heard of Cassini, and the Mars probes, but there are two very interesting spacecraft making two very interesting encounters in the next few weeks.
1) On June 27, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft -- which sent a chunk of copper smashing into a comet back in 2005, and which has now been repurposed for planetary science -- will swing by the Earth, using our planet's gravity to change its direction and speed. DI will pass at a distance of just 37,000 km (23,000 miles)! That's around the same height above the surface as geosynchronous (i.e. weather and communication) satellites. This maneuver will send the little spacecraft on its way to an encounter with the comet Hartley 2 in November.
2) The European Space Agency's amazing Rosetta spacecraft will fly by the asteroid ...
