picky picky picky
I know this is being picky, but the article states.
"The encounter, 431 million kilometers (268 million miles) from Earth, pitted a 370 kg (820 lb) camera-equipped copper probe against the Manhattan-sized comet Tempel 1, with a flyby spacecraft to observe the crash."
I believe the encounter actually occurred 83 million miles from earth. I assume the writer has misinterpreted the distance of the trajectory the spacecraft had to travel to get there for the actual strait line distance to the comet.