When the Deep Impact probe hit Comet 9P/Tempel, there was almost no ch — Comet

"By being seldom seen, I could not stir But like a comet I was wonderd at."

"I came in with Halleys Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I dont go out with Halleys Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."

"Ruling the calm spaciousness of that heaven was the great comet, now green-white, and wonderful for all who had eyes to see."

"As I drew near the end, the sense of strangeness returned to me. It was more and more evident to me that this was a different humanity from any I had known, unreal, having different customs, different beliefs, different interpretations, different emotions. It was no mere change in conditions and institutions the comet had wrought. It had made a change of heart and mind."

"I am as familiar with the paths of heaven as with the streets of Nehardea, with the exception of the comet, about which I am ignorant."

"What you fellows call progress moves by two springs, men and events. But sad to say, from time to time the exceptional is necessary. For events as well as for men, the stock company is not enough; geniuses are needed among men, and revolutions among events. Great accidents are the law; the order of things cannot get along without them; and, to see the apparitions of comets, one would be tempted to believe that Heaven itself is in need of star actors. At the moment you least expect it, God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some strange star comes along, underlined by an enormous tail. And that makes Caesar die. Brutus strikes him with a knife, and God with a comet."