sized space rock. At that point, the Deep Impact craft will have about 13 minutes to capture images and data before it weathers what astronomers expect will be a blizzard of particles thrown out of the nucleus of the comet. There are cameras aboard the impactor and the main craft, and the crash will also be observed by the Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes in addition to telescopes on Earth. Because scientists do not know how bright the impact will be, they can't say whether backyard astronomers will be able to see it. But those with the best chance are those in the western United States and possibly New Zealand. More information and images are available online at http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact. --SP 2243 Local Time 1943 GMT
