Deep Impact

Deep Impact

Spacecraft· NASAinactive

Deep Impact — fired an impactor into comet Tempel 1 (2005) to expose and study its interior; later flew by comet Hartley 2.

Open in 3D viewSee Deep Impact in the live, interactive 3D map

Key facts

Current speed
29.4 km/s
Distance from Sun
1.06 AU
Status
Completed
Launched
2005

Mission & specifications

Mission

Operator
NASA
Launched
January 12, 2005
Status
Completed

Trajectory

Current speed
29.4 km/s
Distance from the Sun
1.06 AU
Distance from Earth
1.34 AU
Distance from Mars
0.574 AU

Cost & funding

Program cost
$3.30 × 10⁸ USD

Mission

Deep Impact set out to do something no mission had attempted: to punch a hole in a comet and look at what lay inside. Launched on 12 January 2005, it consisted of a flyby spacecraft and a 370-kilogram copper-weighted impactor. As it neared comet Tempel 1, the spacecraft released the impactor into the comet's path, and on 4 July 2005 the comet ran into it at about 37,000 kilometres per hour. The collision blasted out a brilliant plume of debris that the flyby craft, and telescopes across the Solar System, watched closely. The excavated material revealed that the comet's interior was made of extremely fine, fluffy, porous dust — more like talcum powder than solid ice — and contained more dust relative to ice than expected, reshaping ideas about how comets are built. The impact threw out so much material that it temporarily hid the new crater from view. With its primary craft still working, NASA sent Deep Impact on an extended mission, renamed EPOXI, which flew close past a second comet, Hartley 2, in 2010, capturing jets of carbon-dioxide gas erupting from its peanut-shaped nucleus. Contact with the spacecraft was finally lost in 2013.

  1. 2005Launch toward comet Tempel 1Launch

    Carries a flyby craft and a heavy copper impactor to a comet.

  2. 2005Impactor strikes Tempel 1Impactor

    The comet runs into the impactor at ~37,000 km/h; the flyby craft watches the plume.

  3. 2010Extended mission flies past Hartley 2Flyby

    Renamed EPOXI, it images jets of gas erupting from a small peanut-shaped comet.

  4. 2013Contact lostMission end

    Communication with the spacecraft is lost after years of extended operations.

Images

NASAS Deep Impact Spacecraft Images Comet ISON
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD · NASA Image Library
The Making of Deep Impact
NASA/JPL/Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation · NASA Image Library
Tempel 1, as Seen by Two Spacecraft
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Maryland/Cornell · NASA Image Library
Comet Tempel 1, in Context
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Maryland · NASA Image Library
Tempel Poses Next to a Star
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD · NASA Image Library
Tempel Alive with Light
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD · NASA Image Library
Deep Impact View of Tempel 1
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD · NASA Image Library
Tempel 1 Impact Site
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Maryland/Cornell · NASA Image Library

Images from open archives · credit shown per image