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NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
An artificial crater on the comet Tempel 1 created nearly six years ago by a NASA spacecraft takes center stage in a flood of new photos released late Tuesday (Feb. 15) after another probe revisited the comet.
The intentional scar on comet Tempel 1 was created in 2005 by NASA's Deep Impact mission, which dropped a small probe on the comet to see what it was made of. The space agency's Stardust spacecraft flew by Tempel 1 late Monday (Feb. 14), snapping close up photos that provide a new look at the battered comet, including the Deep Impact crater.
"We see a crater with a small mound in the center, and it appears that some of the ejecta went up and came right back down," said Pete Schultz of Brown University, Providence, R.I., in a statement. "This tells us this cometary nucleus is fragile and weak based on how subdued the crater is we see today."
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