...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Space Careers

news Space News

Search News Archive

Title

Article text

Keyword

Displaying items by tag: Deep Impact (spacecraft)

Thursday, 04 April 2013 03:56

Deep Impact (spacecraft)

Deep Impact is a NASA space probe launched on January 12, 2005.

It was designed to study the interior composition of the comet 9P/Tempel, by releasing an impactor into the comet. At 5:52 UTC on July 4, 2005, the impactor successfully collided with the comet's nucleus. The impact excavated debris from the interior of the nucleus, allowing photographs of the impact crater. The photographs showed the comet to be more dusty and less icy than had been expected. The impact generated a large and bright dust cloud, which unexpectedly obscured the view of the impact crater.

Published in Projects