Deep Impact II?

Remember a little film called Deep Impact that came out in 1998? It was the other space-object-threatens-to-hit-the-earth-and- wipe-out-all-life-as-we-know-it movie released that year (and far better than Armageddon, in my opinion). Well consider the following plot for a sequel:

A NASA mission to study comets has a probe slam into a passing comet. The probe makes contact, creating a huge crater (150 yards in diameter, about the size of the Pasadena Rose Bowl), and causes the comet to veer off course and towards earth. Sounds pretty Hollywood, eh?

Well it's all going to happen for real (except for the last part of changing the comet's trajectory), as NASA is launching a mission today called "Deep Impact." The two spacecraft will rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1 on July 4 of this year, when one of the spacecraft (Impactor) will slam into the comet taking and transmitting pictures all along the way. Impactor's companion, Flyby, will witness the event without going kamaikaze on the comet. Interesting stuff. Read more here.