Fireworks came early on July 4th when, at 1:52am EDT, the Deep Impact spacecraft's probe smashed into the surface of Comet Tempel 1's nucleus at ten kilometers per second.
The well-targeted impactor probe was vaporized as it blasted out an expanding cloud of material, seen here 13 seconds after the collision.
The image is part of a stunning series of frames documenting the event from the high resolution camera onboard the flyby spacecraft.
Tempel 1's potato-shaped nucleus is approximately 5 kilometers across as seen from this perspective.
Cameras onboard the impactor probe were also able to image the nucleus and impact site up-close ... until about 3 seconds before the impact.
