(Get it? “Smashing” Success? Ha ha! I made funny!) Since my ranting about Da Vinci Code and Western Union have bumped down the good astronomy material, here’s the latest stuff on the Deep Impact comet mission:

• Spaceflight Now has an excellent post-impact summary with pictures. Bah. They totally ripped off my headline idea. Totally. More mission updates here.
• Space.com’s post-impact story has a little more imagery.
• And please ignore my rather cheesy impact animation below: JPL’s Planetary Photojournal is where the good images and animations are. Here’s a video of the impactor’s approach to Tempel 1 from the impactor’s camera itself. The last frame was taken just 3.7 seconds before hitting, with a resolution of eight inches. That’s practically standing on the surface.
• Boom. And don’t forget the raw image updates.

Congrats to the JPL team for another successful mission. Enjoy the hard planetary science coming out of Deep Impact now, and may the Funding be with you.