NASA probe hits bullseye in comet experiment

IT sounded like science fiction NASA scientists using a space probe to chase down a speeding comet 83 million miles away and slamming it into the frozen ball of dirty ice and debris in a mission to learn how the solar system was formed.

Yesterday, scientists in charge of the Deep Impact mission released an 820-pound copper and aluminium missile the size of a washing machine into the path of comet Tempel 1, which was hurtling through space at 23,000mph.

Mission controllers at the American space agency NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, clapped, cheered and hugged each other when the impactor struck.