Bruce Murray Space Image Library

The pitted surface of Tempel 1

The pitted surface of Tempel 1
The pitted surface of Tempel 1 This view of the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 is composed of many frames captured from different ranges by Deep Impact's Impactor spacecraft as it approached for its July 4, 2005 encounter. Images of the whole comet nucleus were taken from a greater distance and so are blurrier; highest resolution images were captured of the bottom half of the nucleus. The crash site was between the two circular features at the center of the image, which are thought to be impact craters. NASA / JPL / UMD