PIA02105: Cometary 'Sneeze'

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Target Name: Tempel 1
Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun)
Mission: Deep Impact
Spacecraft: Deep Impact
Instrument: Medium Resolution Imager (MRI)
Product Size: 480 samples x 150 lines
Produced By: University of Maryland
Full-Res TIFF: PIA02105.tif (72.3 kB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA02105.jpg (8.569 kB)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This movie of comet Tempel 1 is made up of raw images taken by the medium resolution imager on the Deep Impact spacecraft. The images were acquired between June 22 and June 24, 2005. A brightening by a factor of about 5 and a rapid decay to baseline brightness were observed on June 22. As the comet moves through space, background stars pass in and out of the field of view. Cosmic rays hitting the spacecraft's detector give an appearance of flickering. This is an artifact of space cameras that can be removed.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

Image Addition Date:
2005-06-28