Tempel 1 after Deep Impact
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Common Name: Comet 9P/Tempel 1 Other Names: RA: Not recorded at time of photo Dec Not recorded at time of photo Constellation: (Time of photograph) Distance: (time of photograph) Magnitude: 11 (time of photograph) Telescope: Meade LX200GPS 14" Camera: Canon 300D Filters: nil Exposure: Date: 2005 Where: Tenby Observatory, Coonabarabran Lat: 31 16 35.05 S, Long 149 11 33.99 E, Elevation 547metres Notes: This comet was discovered in 1867 by Leberecht in France. The comet was later lost due to a change in its orbit from an encounter with Jupiter. Once found it was discovered to have a 1:2 resonance with Jupiter. The orbital period is 5.5 years and comes within 1.5 astronomical units of the Sun. This is expected to change due more close encounters of the Jupiter kind. It is thought that the nucleus of the comet is about 6km in diameter and is probably elongated in shape. This comet was selected as the target of the Deep Impact mission. First proposed back in 1999, the mission was launched on 2005 January 12. Deep Impact released the "Impactor" on 2005 July 3 and this crashed into the comet on July 4. The predicted crater was expected to be the size of a typical sports stadium, but the debris which sprayed out from the impact effectively blocked the crater from the spacecraft's view. Nearly every major observatory on our planet observed the event, as did amateur astronomers. The event was also studied by several satellites and space probes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Rosetta, the later of which was heading toward a rendezvous with another comet and provided valuable observations of 9P/Tempel 1 from a different observing angle. Another satellite, the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite, which had been put to sleep on 2004 July 21 after completing its mission, was reactivated to monitor water output during the Deep Impact event. Water was imaged on the surface of the comet. This photo was taken a few hours after the deep impact event.