Group photo: Progress of Deep Impact's spectacular collision

    WASHINGTON, July 4 (Xinhuanet) -- A NASA space probe successfully collided with the comet Tempel 1 early Monday morning, by which scientists hope they can have a peek at the core of the comet to expand understanding of the formation of the solar system. 

A NASA space probe struck the comet Tempel 1 as planned early Monday morning, by which scientists hope to have a peek at the comet's heart to expand understanding of the formation of the solar system. The collision occurred about 24 hours after the copper projectile was released from its mothership Deep Impact. (Photo: Xinhua/AFP)

    The collision occurred as scheduled at 1:52 p.m. EDT (0552 GMT),said Allen Buif, spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which is operating the 333 million US dollar project.

    Before the head-on strike, the battery-powered copper projectile completed a trip of 804,500 km toward the sunlit side of the comet, with the last two hours of the dive on auto-pilot. The 370-kg probe was released about 24 hours ago from its mothership Deep Impact.

    The impactor is expected to smash in the comet a crater that could range from a large house to a football stadium in size and from two to 14 stories in depth.

    Scientists hope the impact would release primordial material inside the comet core, which are believed not to have changed since the solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

    About 15 minutes after the collision, Deep Impact will make its closest flyby of the comet nucleus, at a distance of about 500 km. If the craft survives, scientists hope the instruments aboard it will transmit data back to Earth for an additional month before it is sent into an elliptical orbit.

    Deep Impact was launched in January from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

    Comets, made up of ice and dust, are frozen leftovers of thesolar system building blocks. Scientists believe studying them could provide clues to how the sun and planets formed.    

    Tempel 1, which was discovered in 1867, moves around the sun inan elliptical orbit between Mars and Jupiter about every 6 years. Enditem

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