Giotto

Giotto
/jot"oh/; It. /jawt"taw/, n. (Giotto di Bondone)
1266?-1337, Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect.

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▪ European space program
 European space probe that came within 596 km (370 miles) of the nucleus of Halley's Comet on March 13, 1986.

 Giotto was named after the 14th-century Italian painter Giotto di Bondone, whose 1305–06 fresco The Adoration of the Magi includes a realistic depiction of a comet as the Star of Bethlehem in the Nativity scene; this image is believed to have been inspired by the artist's observation of the passage of Halley's Comet in 1301.

      Giotto was the first solar system exploration mission carried out by the European Space Agency. Its objective was to image and analyze the nucleus of Halley's Comet and to study other characteristics of the comet during its next periodic swing through the inner solar system in 1986. The spacecraft was launched by an Ariane rocket on July 2, 1985. Data from the Soviet Vega spacecraft, which also investigated Halley's Comet, enabled Giotto's controllers to home in on the comet's nucleus. In its approach to the nucleus, Giotto returned a wealth of scientifically valuable data, including vivid images. It determined that the comet was 80 percent water, with a dust-covered, uneven surface darker than coal, and that the comet was composed of primitive material dating from the formation of the solar system.

      Fourteen seconds before closest approach, Giotto was hit by a large particle ejected from the comet nucleus; this caused loss of data from the spacecraft and damaged some of its instruments, but others survived with little or no damage. The surviving instruments allowed Giotto, after "hibernating" for more than six years, to carry out a July 10, 1992, close encounter with the nucleus of Comet Grigg-Skjellerup. Giotto, no longer returning data, remained in orbit around the Sun.

John M. Logsdon
 

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Giotto — di Bondone Pour les articles homonymes, voir Giotto (homonymie). Giotto di Bondone Sa …   Wikipédia en Français

  • GIOTTO — Au chant XI de son Purgatoire , Dante fait dire vers 1320 à Oderisi da Gubbio, enlumineur à Paris, que Giotto avait éclipsé Cimabue, comme en poésie le Florentin Guido Cavalcanti l’avait fait du Bolognais Guido Guinizelli. Pour Boccace, la… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Giotto — ist: der Name eines italienischen Malers: Giotto di Bondone eine Raumfahrtmission zum Halleyschen Kometen: Giotto (Sonde) ein Bildbearbeitungsprogramm für Hobbyastronomen ein Süßwarenprodukt des Unternehmens Ferrero, siehe Giotto… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Giotto — di Bondone (mejor conocido como Giotto) pintor italiano nacido en 1267 y fallecido en 1337, máximo representante del Trecento italiano. En vida, Giotto fue sumamente reconocido, y recibió muchos importantes encargos, fundamentalmente para pintar… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Giotto — (Dschotto), eigentl. Ambrogiotto Burdone, einer der ausgezeichnetsten älteren italien. Maler, Schüler Cimabues, zugleich Baumeister u. Bildhauer, geb. 1270 zu Vespignano im Florentinischen, Wiederhersteller der Kunst, indem er dieselbe von der… …   Herders Conversations-Lexikon

  • Giotto — Para otros usos de este término, véase Misión Giotto. Giotto …   Wikipedia Español

  • Giotto — I Giotto   [ dʒotto; nach der Kometendarstellung in Giottos Fresko »Die Anbetung der Könige«; Padua, Arenakapelle], von der ESA entwickelte Raumsonde zur Erforschung des Halley Kometen. Die 1985 gestartete Sonde flog 1986 (als erste Mission) in… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Giotto — biographical name 1266/67(or 1276) 1337 Giotto di Bondone Florentine painter, architect, & sculptor …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • GIOTTO —    a great Italian painter, born at a village near Florence; was a shepherd s boy, and at 10 years of age, while tending his flock and drawing pictures of them, was discovered by Cimabue, who took him home and made a pupil of him; never, says… …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • GIOTTO'S O —    a perfectly round O, such as Giotto is said to have sent the Pope in evidence of his ability to do some decorative work for his Holiness …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

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