First European images of impact on Comet 9P/Tempel 1 (Forwarded)

ESA News
http://www.esa.int

4 July 2005

First European images of impact on Comet 9P/Tempel 1

These are the first pictures of the impact received by European observers of the Deep Impact encounter.

They were taken by the Faulkes Telescope in Maui, Hawaii (Faulkes Telescope North), which was ideally placed to observe the impact which took place around 07:52 CEST on 4 July.

These images show impact and the flare growing as material is thrown out from the comet. The plume appears to be brightening the nucleus by a factor of approximately ten.

The Faulkes Telescope project owns two research quality telescopes, one on Maui and the other is located in Siding Spring, Australia (Faulkes Telescope South). Each telescope stands 8 metres tall and has a 2-metre diameter primary mirror and a field of view up to 30 arcminutes in diameter.

For more information:

Paul Roche, Faulkes Telescope Project
Tel: +44 29 2087 5121

[NOTE: An image related with this release is available at
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMERX5DIAE_index_1.html .

More images from the Faulkes Telescope are available at
http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/scied/deepimpact/deepimpact_new.html ]
.

Relevant Pages