Now, imagine the SUV is a comet and the mini-car is a tiny spacecraft. This is NASA's Deep Impact mission. After being launched in January 2005, Deep Impact met up with Comet Tempel 1 on July 3, 2005. Just 24 hours before this meeting, a part of the spacecraft, called the smart impactor, separated from the other part, called the flyby spacecraft. The impactor flew all by itself right smack into the path of the comet! The comet was traveling a lot faster, so BLAM! The impactor crashed into the comet . . . or rather, the comet crashed into the impactor at 36,000 kilometers per hour (or 23,000 miles per hour)! Whoever crashed into whom, the impact caused a big flash of light, threw up a lot of debris, and left a big crater! But, don't worry, the crash wasn't big enough to change the comet's orbit. |