Deep Impact was a NASA space probe designed to study the interior of a comet by striking it. The spacecraft carried a copper impactor, which it released toward comet Tempel 1 and which hit the nucleus at high speed on the Fourth of July 2005, while the main craft watched from a safe distance. The collision threw up a plume of dust and ice, which the instruments and telescopes on Earth observed, showing that the comet was a fine, porous body, with dust finer and surface material less dense than expected, and containing water ice. The mission was then extended to the comet Hartley 2 and renamed EPOXI, and it also studied extrasolar planets. Contact with the spacecraft was lost in 2013.
Before and after
- 2005Release of Wikimania
- 2005Creation of F#
- 20052005 becomes the warmest year on record
- 5 January 2005Release of Uncyclopedia
- 12 January 2005Launch of Deep Impact
- 21 January 2005Birth of IShowSpeed
- 26 January 2005Discovery of Hiʻiaka
- February 2005Release of Armenian Wikipedia
- 3 February 2005Kam Air Flight 904
More in Universe & space
- 1 May 1949Discovery of Nereid
- 5 March 1979Discovery of Thebe
- 8 July 1979Discovery of Adrastea
- 16 June 1989Discovery of Proteus
- 23 July 1995Discovery of Comet Hale-Bopp
- 15 May 2005Discovery of Nix
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 21st century.