Deep Impact (1998)

Directed by Mimi Leder, Deep Impact (1998) is an American science fiction disaster film. During a star party in Virginia, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Biederman notices an unidentified object in the night sky and sends a picture to astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf. Upon realizing it is a comet headed for Earth, Wolf rushes to warn others but tragically dies in a car accident. One year later, MSNBC journalist Jenny Lerner begins investigating Secretary of the Treasury Alan Rittenhouse for his connection with ‘Ellie’, whom she assumes to be his mistress. However, she becomes confused when she sees Rittenhouse and his family loading a boat with supplies and decides to keep her suspicions quiet. Soon after, she meets with President Tom Beck who offers her a prominent role in an upcoming press conference if she agrees not to share her story with the public.

Following her discovery that ‘Ellie’ is actually an acronym for ‘extinction-level event’, Beck reveals that the comet Wolf-Biederman is headed for Earth and could potentially wipe out human existence. He discloses that both the United States and Russia have been working on a spacecraft, called the Messiah, to alter the comet’s trajectory with nuclear bombs. Soon after, the Messiah takes off with a team of five American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut aboard. Upon landing on the outer layer of the comet, they drill deep to place the bombs but encounter unexpected sunlight, resulting in one blinded astronaut and another being propelled into space by a gas explosion.