Actually I was just trying to guess from the DI image approximately where the crater might be without actually trying to identify it in the new images so this is normal. One thing now seems certain though: Any crater from the DI impact isn't big (actually it occurs to me if there might possibly be no identifiable new crater, possibly due to a lot of dust?).

Phil mentions he's seen things have dissapeared. The crater may have eroded away over the past few years.

But why wouldn't other craters/features seen in the Deep Impact images have eroded also?

weird

Regardless of how visible the DI crater is, I'm very impressed with how well the predicted flyby geometry matches the images. It looks like they timed the flyby flawlessly. Despite the pre-flyby handwringing that they might have targeted the incorrect peak in the rotation light curve, it looks like they chose correctly!

Disappeared or invisible due to low phase angle?

Fascinating images- much better than expected. Here's a processed version of the closest shot available at the moment.

I'm wondering about the phase angle too. I was ready to declare an identification of the crater based on Phil's enhancement of this earlier image (see dark circularish ring inside my white circle):

But that dark ring seems to be invisible in the closer image. Could that be due to the change in viewing geometry?

More pics.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/stardust/st.../n30035te01.jpg
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/stardust/st.../n30036te01.jpg
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/stardust/st.../n30037te01.jpg
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/stardust/st.../n30039te01.jpg
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/stardust/st.../n30040te01.jpg
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/stardust/st.../n30041te01.jpg
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/stardust/st.../n30042te01.jpg

Think of a sand dune.

Put a foot-print in it.

Following day...sand dune's still there...but the foot print isn't.

Is there a need to link to every image? They can all be easily seen here http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust...ion1/index.html

Yeah, no crater... but maybe it caused the obliteration of the dark spot just above the arrow point in the DI image?

Great images! I expected the crater to be much bigger! Now we can't even find it..

Absolutely amazing pictures - I was expecting less quality than the DI pics, but these are comparable if not better.

I'm amazed that the crater isn't very obvious considering the material plume the impactor kicked out. That's 370kg's of copper travelling at around 10km/second.

Apparently a crater in the order of 100m in diameter was envisaged. The surface obviously absorbs an impactor much more than expected.

Simply amazing work on the part of the team to achieve this sort of targeting and imaging.

What pathetic humans we are, we can't even make a lasting impact on a measly comet...

Looking at Emily's animation, it looks like I got the geometry in post #107 about right after all.

The "EPOXI mission" scientists seem to be just as confused as the rest of us:

"Using the composite image from Deep Impact and cropping, rotating, brightening 30036 from SD-N...Where's the crater??."

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?stor...726&theater

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=499...ter#!/EPOXI

To see the link you need first to log on using FACEBOOK. I have proven that any account will do.