Copper in HistoryFact 28 of 28
On July 4, 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft jettisoned a 770 pound, solid copper bullet into the comet Tempel 1. A camera and infrared spectrometer on the spacecraft, along with ground based observatories, analyzed the resulting icy debris, as well as the comet's interior material exposed by the impact and were able to determine the composition of one of the oldest objects in the solar system. Copper was used because it of its unique ability to not generate confusing emission lines in the spectroscopic images being analyzed.
