Launched in 2005, the Deep Impact mission was a scientific and cultural milestone. The mission involved a projectile that was launched into a comet, creating a plume of ice and dust that cameras on the main part of the satellite analyzed for their composition.

Now, the equipment from that mission has been repurposed to help with the search for new planets. The EPOCh project will use the cameras already in place on the Deep Impact spacecraft to look for transiting exoplanets, observe the "wobbling" motions of stars with planets, and even analyze the light reflected off the surfaces of far away planets. These observations can not only set the groundwork for future exoplanet science, but could also be instrumental in finding other Earthlike planets or characterizing our own solar system in the context of the greater universe. The spacecraft will conduct observations during the first half of 2008.

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