Tempel 1 (official designation:
9P/Tempel) is a
periodic Jupiter-family comet discovered by
Wilhelm Tempel in 1867. It completes an orbit of the
Sun every 5.5 years. Tempel 1 was the target of the
Deep Impact space mission, which photographed a deliberate high-speed impact upon the comet in 2005. It was re-visited by the
Stardust spacecraft on February 15, 2011.