Even if the news story itself is not so great, the New York Times never misses an opportunity to capitalize on the national obsession with space. There’s even a whole section within the greater Science section called ‘Space & Cosmos.’ Their latest space story is a relatively insubstantial one (it has a nice picture though) about NASA spacecraft Deep Impact passing by the peanut-shaped comet Hartley 2.
Kenneth Chang writes the story and he keeps it brief, knowing there’s not much to be said. The only real news here is that the spacecraft came close to the comet and took some pictures; but Chang underlines how thrilling this is for astronomers, realizing it may not be so exciting for the average American. Then he goes into some nice background about the Deep Impact spacecraft and the comet Hartley 2—but there could have been more information about the actual science: Chang could have expanded on why cometary research is important, and what scientists hope for in the remaining time Deep Impact has before it is rendered useless. Answering these questions may have strengthened the piece by making it more relevant to the world down here, instead of it being primarily familiar to the cold reaches of space and in the lofty heads of arcane astronomers.
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