Key facts
- Category
- Comets
- Object class
- Comet nucleus
- Mass
- ~70 billion metric tons
- Scale fact
- 7.6 kmmaximum extent
- Estimated age
- ~4.5 billion years
- Composition
- Water ice, dust, frozen volatiles
9P/Tempel 1
7.6 kmmaximum extent
Explore 9P/Tempel 1 to scaleDetails
9P/Tempel 1 is the Jupiter-family comet struck by NASA's 370-kilogram Deep Impact probe in 2005. The collision excavated a plume of fine, carbon-bearing dust and left a crater later measured at about 150 meters across, allowing researchers to test the nucleus below its processed surface.
Deep Impact released its probe into Tempel 1’s path, watched the collision from the flyby spacecraft and then passed about 500 kilometers from the nucleus. The unexpectedly faint initial flash and fine ejecta indicated a highly porous upper layer rather than a strong crust. The dust cloud obscured the new crater during the first flyby, but Stardust-NExT imaged the site in 2011 and constrained the crater to roughly 150 meters across.
Links
- Preset views
- Wikipedia
- 9P/Tempel 1 on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near 9P/Tempel 1 on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, 9P/Tempel 1 falls between 2867 Šteins and 19P/Borrelly. The band uses nearby Comet nucleus records.
Shared physical scale
8.41km
Sources
References for 9P/Tempel 1
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- 9P/Tempel 1 — Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Deep Impact 2005 / NASA / JPL-Caltech / UMD, Public domain)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.