As it happened: Deep Impact, July 2005

NASA

Full official mission updates are available at the NASA mission site and ESA's Rosetta mission pages

July 5th

Impact movie [Quick time format] [NASA] - watch the impact from the perspective of Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft

Deep Impact generates own flash [NASA] - "They say a picture can speak a thousand words. But when you take a look at some of the ones we captured in the early morning hours of July 4, 2005 I think you can write a whole encyclopedia." - Rick Grammier Deep Impact Project Manager

NASA/JPL
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

The high resolution camera on the fly-by space craft captures the plume of dust still rising some fifty minutes after the intial impact

Rosetta shows brightness of the impact [ESA] - offering coloured images of the impact and a mathematical depiction of the flash

July 4th

5.30pm

XMM-Newton detects water on Tempel 1 [ESA] - The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory has detected the presence of water in the comet

5.25pm

Don't forget: Watch BBC TWO this evening at 8.00pm for Stardate's programme bringing you all the latest news, stories and images from the Deep Impact mission.

5.10pm

NASA/JPL
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

This image of what's technically called the 'initial ejecta' was taken just 16 seconds after impact

4.35pm

NASA
NASA
Images: NASA/STSCl

These before and after images from the Hubble telescope show the extreme effects of the impactor hitting the surface of Tempel 1

2.30pm

Watch the impact [Quicktime movie] - this link will take you to a Quicktime movie collated by NASA from images sent back from the impactor as it hurtled towards Tempel 1.

2.20pm

Deep Impact smashes all expectations [New Scientist] - interest is focussing on the size of the burst released when the impactor made contact. "How a washing-machine sized impactor could produce such a large disturbance is going to take some explanation" - Don Yeomans JPL scientist

11.30am

ESA cheers on NASA's Deep Impact success [ESA] - "We are proud to be contributing to this campaign with some of our best sky-watchers - our Rosetta comet-chaser spacecraft, the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, as well as Hubble Space Telescope (which we share with NASA) - and with ESA's Optical Ground Station in the Canary Islands. The results are going to be a terrific help in planning Rosetta's comet landing a decade from now." - David Southwood, European Space Agency's Director of Science

11.00am

NASA
NASA TV image of the moment of impact

9.45am

Comet collision to shed new light on star [EducationGuardian] - "As of now, we have a totally different understanding of our solar system. It exceeded our expectations" - Charles Elachi, Director of NASA's Jet Propolsion Laboratory

Astrologer sues NASA [CNN] - A Russian astrologer is planning to sue NASA, claiming that the shattering of Tempel 1 has distorted the work she has done preparing horoscopes

6.59am

Nasa probe strikes Comet Tempel 1 [BBC News] - The impactor collides with Tempel 1 at a speed of 37,000 km/h, throwing plumes of icy debris up into space and leaving NASA scientists "ecstatic"

July 2nd

7.07am

NASA/JPL

Separation anxiety [NASA] - The mothership sends back this image of the impactor heading towards Tempel 1. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

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