NASA Makes A Deep Impact On Comet

The comet mission has been a success, as the Deep Impact probe collided with its target as scheduled. NASA has released images and some more details about the early morning July 4th scheduled collision of its Deep Impact probe into comet Tempel 1. The probe, released from the Deep Impact spacecraft, made its 23,000 miles per hour impact within about 30 seconds of its predicted 1:52 am EDT time. The wide crater made by the collision opened its interior to observation and analysis by the Deep Impact flyby craft, as well as telescopes on Earth and in space. The information gleaned by revealing the mysteries of the comet's composition may lead to discoveries about our own planet. "We're hoping to gain some insight to answer the question of who we are and where we come from,'' Shadan Ardalan, a mission engineer, said in a phone interview from Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We believe that billions of years ago as planets were forming, comets bombarded our planet, bringing in materials that were the building blocks for life.'' Already, here