A NASA spacecraft has beamed back the first close-up photos from its rendezvous with a comet — and the images show an ice ball that looks like a giant chicken drumstick, or perhaps a peanut or bowling pin.
Deep Impact zoomed to within 435 miles (700 kilometers) of Comet Hartley 2 at 10:01 EDT (1401 GMT) this morning (Nov. 4), and the probe beamed down its first close-up shots an hour later
Hartley2 (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/comet-hartley-2-first-flyby-photos-101104.html)
A bit more:
More (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/deep-impact-comet-flyby-success-101104.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+spaceheadlines+(SPACE.com+Headline+Feed))
More pics:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101105.html (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101105.html)
Wow, that is some weird shape and interesting that it has this flat band round the middle with the jets only coming out of the rough ends.
Carole
Looks like like it's stretching itself apart.
Can't find any reference to it rotating which could explain it
Looks like two clumps that have come together. Perhaps the bit in-between is the debris caused by a slow impact that has fell back, obliterating any craters, etc.
If it was debris it should be composed of the same material as the ends so you should get outgassing from it shouldn't you ?
Looks to me like the two bulb ends have been stretched apart. The centrifugal effect of tumbling due to a collision and perhaps some tidal disruption in the past might have caused that; just like pulling two pieces of play-doh apart.