NASA's Deep Impact Mission Succeeds

As widely reported by the worldwide media and here, NASA's Deep Impact mission successfully collided with Comet Tempel 1 on the Fourth of July.

Comet Tempel is oblong in shape and about 5 kilometers wide and 11 kilometers long (about 3 miles wide and 7 miles long). It is apparently covered, and perhaps composed of, a powdery dust, which created a huge cloud when the impactor and the comet met at a closing velocity of about 10 kilometers per second (6.3 miles per second or 23,000 miles per hour). The scientific analysis of the impact and resultant dust plume is ongoing.

This mission was of high interest to both professional and amateur astronomers, and the images returned by the spacecraft showed a significant brightening of the comet following the impact that were visible through some Earth-based telescopes. Both large telescopes at professional observatories and some amateur astronomers captured the impact brightening. For example, on 5 July 2005 at 0550 UTC, Richard Keen filed this report with the Deep Impact Amateur Observer's Homepage:

"Comet has brightened considerably, and now visible in 6-inch telescope. Estimated magnitude 9.7 (Morris technique, Tycho star catalog), coma 6' diameter with little condensation visible in 6-inch."

Keen used a 6-inch f/3 newtonian reflector at 23x. He made his observations from Mt. Thorodin, Colorado, (105.4 W, 39.9 N) at an elevation of 2730 meters.

Amateur astronomers sent the Deep Impact Amateur Observer's Homepage more than 15 CCD and CMOS images of the comet following the impact. Some of these images reveal a subtle, asymmetrical aspect to the comet's coma caused by the impact plume. The images can be reviewed at the Deep Impact Amateur Observer's Homepage.

A wide variety of images captured from Earth and from the Deep Impact spacecraft can be seen here.

Preliminary findings, animations, and spacecraft imagery and movies are available here.