NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully blasted a crater into comet Tempel 1 on July 4th, releasing a plume of dust and gases that was witnessed by over 80 million people on NASA's website. The mission aimed to uncover the comet's pristine interior in order to examine primordial remnants and gain insight into the formation of our solar system, as comets are believed to have formed from the dust and gases leftover after the sun and planets. While some early data showed comets resemble "snowy dirtballs" more than "dirty snowballs," the full scientific findings will take years to become available.

1. Humans attacked a Comet!
This spectacular image of comet Tempel 1 was taken 67 seconds after was hit by Deep Impact's impactor spacecraft
For the past 138 years, since its discovery in 1867, Comet Tempel 1 has had distant but harmonious
relations with the inhabitants of planet Earth. But on July 4, somewhere between Mars and Jupiter,
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft blasted a gaping hole into the comet. The crash emitted the energy of
4.5 tons of TNT, releasing a tremendous plume of dust and gases. “There is a comet up in the sky
wondering, what in the heck just happened,” commented Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. In an astonishingly tricky mission, Deep Impact traveled 268 million miles
over six months to wreak havoc on the comet. According to NASA scientist Don Yeomans, “We hit it
just exactly where we wanted to.” More than 80 million people visited the NASA website in the 24
hours following the blast to witness the cosmic fireworks.
NASA assures us that there is, in fact, something scientifically redeemable about such violence. After
our Sun and planets formed 4.6 billion years ago, comets were believed to have been formed out of
the remaining dust and gases. By blasting a crater into the surface of Tempel 1 and uncovering its
pristine interior, scientists hope to examine the primordial remnants of our solar system to gain insight
into its formation. Some data is already available (for example, comets, once thought to resemble
“dirty snowballs,” are in fact more like “snowy dirtballs”), but it will take years until the more
significant findings become available.