In addition to taking normal images of the impact in the visible spectrum, the HRI provides an infrared "fingerprint" of the material from inside the comet's nucleus.

BBC: Q&A: Deep Impact comet mission

If the light were not infrared but were instead in the visible spectrum, there was enough of it that the naked eye could have seen a glow, according to Phaedon Avouris , manager of nanometer scale science and technology at IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) Research Laboratories in Yorktown Heights, N.

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The MRI takes pictures in the visible light spectrum and provides back-up for the HRI.

BBC: Q&A: Deep Impact comet mission

For example, iron-gall ink, commonly used on ancient documents, is transparent to infra-red light and most visible in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum.

ECONOMIST: Monitor

Only instead of amplifying visible light, it amplifies photons in the X-ray spectrum.

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