SpazePeriodic comet
Tempel 1
On 4 July 2005 NASA’s Deep Impact fired a 370 kg copper impactor into it to see what comets are made of.
- Size
- 7.6 × 4.9 km
- Orbit
- 5.6 years
- Distance from Sun
- 1.5 to 4.8 AU
- Day
- 40.7 hours
- Reflects
- 5% of sunlight
- Visited by
- Deep Impact, 2005; Stardust, 2011
Can we live on Tempel 1?
Air: only a faint trace of H₂O, CO₂, CO, far too thin to breathe. You’d live in sealed, pressurised habitats.
Ground: Fluffy ice and fine dust.
Atmosphere
- H₂O
- CO₂
- CO
Measured by Deep Impact