NASA'S SPACE EYES FOCUS ON DEEP IMPACT TARGET (STScI-PR05-18)

FOR RELEASE: 1:00 pm (EDT) June 2, 2005

Dolores Beasley/Marta Metelko
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1753/1642)

Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-4673)

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
(Phone: 410/338-4514)

PRESS RELEASE NO.: STScI-PR05-18

NASA'S SPACE EYES FOCUS ON DEEP IMPACT TARGET

On July 4, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will attempt an extraordinarily
daring encounter with the far-flung comet Tempel 1 hurtling through
space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. As if that is not
challenging enough, the comet's size, shape and other characteristics
are not entirely known.

Two of NASA's eyes in the sky, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes,
helped scientists prepare for the comet encounter. From their orbits
high above Earth, the telescopes watched Tempel 1 in early 2004.
Together they came up with the best estimates of the comet's size,
shape, reflectivity and rotation rate. The data may help Deep Impact
snap pictures of the dramatic rendezvous and increase the probability of
making contact with the comet.

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA),
for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international
cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Deep Impact mission for NASA.

For information about NASA and the Deep Impact mission on the Web,
visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer

http://hubblesite.org/news/2005/18

http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/


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