Edinburgh, Dec 31: A spacecraft known as ‘Deep Impact’, would be setting off on a 1.6 billion-mile journey across the solar system for a flyby rendezvous with comet Hartley 2.

En route, the spacecraft will turn the largest of its two telescopes to the stars, to search for new planets.

According to a report in the Scotsman, before intercepting the comet, the spacecraft will have to take three trips round the Sun.

In total, it will cover a distance of around 1.6 billion miles, or 18 times the distance between the Earth and Sun.

When it reaches Hartley 2, the comet will be around 12.4 million miles from Earth.

Deep Impact is an ongoing NASA space probe launched on January 12, 2005, that was designed to study the composition of the interior of the comet Tempel 1 by colliding a section of the spacecraft into the comet.

The spacecraft was successful in this mission when it was able to blow a hole in the comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, to reveal what lay beneath its frozen surface. (ANI)