July 03, 2005

Impact successful!

deepimpact.JPG (NASA Photo)

NASA probe crashes into Comet Tempel 1

"Look at that! Jeez! And we thought it was going to be something subtle!" said JPL’s Donald Yeomans, a member of the Deep Impact science team.

I was on the roof of a neighbor's house with binoculars, but either the binocs were too weak or there was too much ambient light. I sure couldn't see the debris cloud. Of course, the collision was 83 million miles away.

Posted by Linkmeister at July 3, 2005 10:06 PM
Comments

I stayed up until 2:30 am watching the NASA webcast.

Although it was a clear, moonless night here in Michigan, the comet was below the western horizon at time of impact, so I did not even attempt to drag out my 80 mm refractor to have a look.

Watching the photos roll-in in near-time, both from the impactor and the flyby craft, was exciting.

What a bullseye!

Posted by: Pixelshim at July 4, 2005 03:26 AM