Comet 103P Hartley

[mickw]

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

[mickw]

A bit more:

More

More pics:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101105.html

[Carole]

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

[mickw]

Looks like like it's stretching itself apart.

Can't find any reference to it rotating which could explain it

[Mike]

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.

[mickw]

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 ?

[RobertM]

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.