Skip to footer

NASA declares its Deep Impact Probe finished

The probe, with which NASA can no longer communicate, will ring the sun until it runs out of fuel.

|
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Reuters
NASA on Friday gave up on the Deep Impact spacecraft, which suddenly fell silent after nearly nine years of exploring comets.
  • By Associated Press Associated Press

NASA on Friday gave up on the Deep Impact spacecraft, which suddenly fell silent after nearly nine years of exploring comets.

The U.S. space agency declared an end to Deep Impact, which in 2005 smashed a comet with a projectile to give scientists a peek of the interior. The spacecraft went on to rendezvous with two more comets.

Last month, engineers lost contact with Deep Impact and unsuccessfully tried to regain communications. The cause of the failure was unknown, but NASA suspects the spacecraft lost control, causing its antenna and solar panels to be pointed in the wrong direction.

University of Maryland scientists, who led the team, say the spacecraft lasted longer than they imagined and returned many discoveries about how comets formed.

During the mission, Deep Impact beamed back 500,000 images including of comet Ison, which could shine as bright as the moon when it makes a close approach in November.

Since there's no way for ground controllers to talk to Deep Impact, the spacecraft will continue on its path around the sun until it runs out of fuel.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to NASA declares its Deep Impact Probe finished
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0920/NASA-declares-its-Deep-Impact-Probe-finished
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe