NASA’s Deep Impact space probe launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The Deep Impact probe was designed to fly out to and study the Tempel 1 comet. Unlike all previous attempts at studying comets, this was not a fly-by mission. Instead, it released an impactor into the comet to analyze the composition of the dust and debris kicked up by the impactor. The results, which showed the comet to be composed mainly of dust-like particles, were surprising as scientists believed Tempel 1 to be made up of ice more than anything else.