NASA JPL Image: Comet Tempel 1

NASA's Stardust-NExT mission took this image of comet Tempel 1 at 8:38 p.m. PST (11:38 p.m. EST) on Feb 14, 2011, from a distance of approximately 946.05 trillion kilometers (587.85 trillion miles). 

The comet was first visited by NASA's Deep Impact mission in 2005. Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that will expand the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Stardust-NExT for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. 

Joe Veverka of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is the mission's principal investigator. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission operations. For more information about Stardust-NExT, please visit http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology