First Data from Deep Impact Crash Into Comet Tempel I

This image shows the view from Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft as it turned back to look at comet Tempel 1. Fifty minutes earlier, the spacecraft's probe had been run over by the comet. That collision kicked up plumes of ejected material, seen here streaming away from the back side of the comet. This image was taken by the flyby craft's high-resolution camera. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.

July 10, 2005 Austin, Texas - Astronomer Anita Cochran has been working at the University of Texas since 1982. Now she is a senior research scientist and Assistant Director of the McDonald Observatory in Austin. She and several hundred scientists around the world are helping to analyze the spectral data from the Deep Impact crash with Comet Tempel I on July 3 to 4, 2005. That night, Dr. Cochran was in Hawaii at the Kech I telescope, the largest in the world, watching to see if a light flare at the moment the impactor hit the very dim magnitude 11 comet could be seen.

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