NASA Shot a Comet | Deep Impact Mission

NASA Shot a Comet | Deep Impact Mission - Tempel 1

Back in 1988 there was a movie titled "Deep Impact" (1998) ... It was about a comet that was discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. As doomsday nears, the human race prepares for the worst. Well NASA sort of participated in the movie and then on a real live mission associated with a small comet... This video is about that encounter, about that mission. Astrum does a great job of narrating and depicting the NASA operation to crash a comet on purpose for scientific information...

Discovery:
Comet Tempel 1 was discovered by Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel (more commonly known as Wilhelm Tempel) on 3 Apr. 3, 1867.

Overview:
Comet 9P/Tempel 1 orbits the sun within the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Tempel 1 last reached perihelion (closest approach to the sun) in 2016.

Tempel 1 is a Jupiter-family comet. A Jupiter-family comet is defined as having an orbital period of less than 20 years and one that has been modified by close passages with the gas giant. It takes 5.56 years for Tempel 1 to orbit the sun once. However, Tempel 1's orbit is changing slowly over time. When Tempel 1 was first discovered, its orbit measured 5.68 years.

Tempel 1 is a small comet. Its nucleus measures approximately 3.73 miles (6 kilometers) in diameter, which is about half the size of the object hypothesized to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs. Two missions have encountered this comet: Deep Impact in 2005 and Stardust NExT in 2011.

Impact:
Spacecraft views of comet Tempel 1 before and after the probe impact.
Deep Impact sent an impactor into Tempel 1, becoming the first spacecraft to eject material from the surface of a comet. Changes in the surface of Tempel 1 were obscured by all the material ejected during and after the collision. The impact site was then re-imaged by a second mission, Stardust NExT, in 2011. Any changes were hard to distinguish when compared with pre-impact images.

I hope you enjoy it!
Kerry
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