Artist Pat Rawlings gives us a look at the moment of impact and the forming of the crater. (Click to enlarge!) Courtesy of NASA/JPL/UMD Artwork by Pat Rawlings.
Posted: Jul 03, 2005 04:56 pm EDT SUBSCRIBER CONTENT PREVIEW FOR FULL STORY: LOGIN OR SUBSCRIBE NOW - UP TO 3 MONTHS FREE
Impactor released! Impact time: 22:52 on July 3, PDT That's tonight for the US west coast, or early morning Monday pending where you are eastwards from Calif. The kinetic energy that will be released by the collision is estimated to be the equivalent of nearly 5 tons of TNT. We will likely punch a crater, anywhere from the size of a Sport Utility Vehicle to a football stadium, into the comet's nucleus. At impact, the comet might become visible as a faint fuzzy smudge but there are a number of places on the net with a better...
