In July 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft dropped an 820-lb copper projectile onto the surface of Comet Tempel 1. Almost six years later, NASA finally saw the impact crater. On Valentine's Day 2011, long after the dust had cleared, Stardust-NExT flew past Tempel 1 and photographed the impact site:

Tempel 1 Crater
© NASA
It's not very impressive--and that is telling. The lack of a well-defined crater reveals much about the structural integrity of the comet's surface. Science team member Pete Schultz of Brown University explains: "We see a [shallow] crater with a small mound in the center, and it appears that some of the ejecta went up and came right back down. This tells us this cometary nucleus is fragile and weak based on how subdued the crater is we see today."

Stay tuned for updates as the analysis progresses beyond the "first-look" stage, and meanwhile, browse the flyby gallery.

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