NASA Deep Impact finally hits the Tempel 1 Comet with an impactor

NASA Deep Impact finally hits the Tempel 1 Comet with an impactor

July 4 is here and the astronomical event the world has been waiting for since months has finally taken place. NASA is celebrating the successful mission of colliding with the Tempel 1 comet by an impactor thrown from the Deep Impact spacecraft. The impactor of the size of a regular washing machine collided with the comet at a speed of around 37,000km/h, throwing up a huge plume of icy debris.

Deep Impact itself watched the event from a safe distance and sent the collected data and images to the earth at NASA’s headquarters. Dr Don Yeomans, a Nasa mission scientist spoke about this mission in a statement: “We hit it just exactly where we wanted to. The impact was bigger than I expected, and bigger than most of us expected. We’ve got all the data we could possibly ask for.”

NASA believes that the inner surfaces of the comets are relatively unchanged from the time they were formed which is close to when the solar system was created. Hence, by studying the images from inside the surface of the comet they aim to find out more on the creation of our planet and the solar system as a whole unit.

Dr Charles Elachi, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory added his own comments: “From the beginning, I said this was one of the most daring missions and now we have success. We are in the business of opening new frontiers in the exploration of space. When we analyze the data, we will have a whole new insight into the Universe.”