Latest Lander Stories

By Gina Keating PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - The Deep Impact spacecraft hassuccessfully deployed its coffee table-sized "impactor" intothe path of a comet in the final stage of a mission to tracelife on Earth to its celestial origins, NASA scientists said onSunday. The impactor was on track to collide with the Tempel 1comet at 10:52 p.m. PDT on Sunday (1:52 a.m. EDT, 0552 GMT onMonday), as Deep Impact's fly-by spacecraft, watching from asafe distance, captures images and data with its...

By Nichola Groom and Nigel Hunt PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - A NASA spacecraft entered therisky home stretch of its 268 million-mile voyage to crash intoa comet on Sunday, performing its final maneuvers in a missionto uncover the building blocks of life on Earth. The Deep Impact spacecraft successfully deployed its coffeetable-sized "impactor" into the path of comet Tempel 1 Saturdayevening, and was on track for a 10:52 p.m. PDT (1:52 a.m. EDT,0552 GMT on Monday) smashup, scientists at...

By Nichola Groom PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - A NASA spacecraft is "healthyand ready" for its July 4 collision with a comet and hasalready provided images critical to understanding the buildingblocks of life on Earth, officials said on Friday. While still roughly 1.5 million miles from its target, thefast-moving Deep Impact craft is on track for its Saturdayrelease of a coffee-table sized impactor that is expected toblast a stadium-sized crater into comet Tempel 1. "Both the fly-by and the...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA scientists are preparing toslam a coffee table-sized spacecraft into a comet half the sizeof Manhattan on July 4 in a cosmic smashup aimed at discoveringthe building blocks of life on Earth. The mission, known as Deep Impact, aims to uncover andphotograph pristine material formed billions of years agoduring the creation of the solar system by blasting a craterthe size of a football stadium into comet Tempel 1. Comets are composed of ice, gas and dust from the...

In June 29 story headlined "NASA comet crash to seekbuilding blocks of life" please read in second paragraph...during the creation of the solar system... instead of ...during the creation of the universe... A corrected version follows: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA scientists are preparing toslam a coffee table-sized spacecraft into a comet half the sizeof Manhattan on July 4 in a cosmic smashup aimed at discoveringthe building blocks of life on Earth. The mission, known as Deep Impact, aims...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA scientists are preparing toslam a coffee table-sized spacecraft into a comet half the sizeof Manhattan on July 4 in a cosmic smashup aimed at discoveringthe building blocks of life on Earth. The mission, known as Deep Impact, aims to uncover andphotograph pristine material formed billions of years agoduring the creation of the universe by blasting a crater thesize of a football stadium into comet Tempel 1. Comets are composed of ice, gas and dust from the...

JPL -- The hyper-speed demise of NASA's Deep Impact probe generated an immense flash of light, which provided an excellent light source for the two cameras on the Deep Impact mothership. Deep Impact scientists theorize the 820-pound impactor vaporized deep below the comet's surface when the two collided at 1:52 am July 4, at a speed of about 10 kilometers per second (6.3 miles per second or 23,000 miles per hour). "You can not help but get a big flash when objects meet at 23,000 miles...

JPL -- NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft continues to sail through its final checkout, as it hurtles toward comet Tempel 1. Impact with the comet is scheduled for 1:52 a.m. EDT, July 4 (10:52 p.m. PDT, July 3). "The time of comet encounter is near and the major mission milestones are getting closer and closer together," said Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "After all the years of design, training and simulations, we...

JPL -- NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft observed a massive, short-lived outburst of ice or other particles from comet Tempel 1 that temporarily expanded the size and reflectivity of the cloud of dust and gas (coma) that surrounds the comet nucleus. The outburst was detected as a dramatic brightening of the comet on June 22. It is the second of two such events observed in the past two weeks. A smaller outburst also was seen on June 14 by Deep Impact, the Hubble Space Telescope and by ground based...

Cambridge, MA -- The Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) has been asleep on orbit for the past 11 months. SWAS operators placed it into hibernation after a highly successful 5.5-year mission highlighted by the discovery of a swarm of comets evaporating around an aging red giant star. Now, they have awakened SWAS again for the first-ever opportunity to study a comet on a collision course with a U.S. space probe. "We knew there was life left in SWAS," said SWAS Principal...