The first pictures to show good detail of the nucleus were taken by the medium resolution camera
Nasa's Deep Impact probe has flown by Comet Hartley 2.
The first pictures revealed a roughly 1.5km-long, peanut-shaped object with jets of gas streaming from its surface. The pass, which occurred about 23 million km from Earth, was only the fifth time a spacecraft had made a close approach to a comet. Nasa said it would take many hours to retrieve all of the data recorded by Deep Impact's two visible-light imagers and one infrared sensor.
But the initial pictures to get to ground gave a fascinating view of the comet's icy body, or nucleus. "The dominant signature is [the] two rough ends and a smooth middle," said Dr Jessica Sunshine, the mission's deputy principal investigator from the University of Maryland, College Park.
"What we see is that where the activity is, where the jets are, is the rough areas. And the middle - in our best current interpretation - we think is fine grained material that has been re-distributed across the comet and collected in a topographic low."
The information from the flyby should give scientists further insight into the diverse properties and behaviours of what are some of the Solar System's most remarkable objects.
"Every time we go to comets, they're full of surprises," said principal investigator Dr Mike A'Hearn, also from the University of Maryland.
The closest approach to Hartley 2 - a highly elongated object - occurred just before 1400 GMT. The probe whizzed by at a relative speed of 12.5km/s.
source
Probe sweeps past 'space peanut'
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