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Deep Impact

On May 10, 1998, in Richmond, Virginia, high school student Leo Biederman observes an unidentified object in the night sky at his astronomy club's star party. His picture is sent to Marcus Wolf, who realizes it is a comet on a collision course with Earth. Wolf dies in a car crash while racing to raise the alarm.

In 1999, MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner investigates Secretary of the Treasury, Alan Rittenhouse, over his connection with a woman named "Ellie," whom she assumes to be a mistress; she is confused when she finds him and his daughter, Lilly, loading a boat with large amounts of food and survival gear. The FBI apprehends Lerner and takes her to meet President Tom Beck, who persuades her not to share the story in return for a prominent role in the press conference he will arrange. She subsequently discovers that "Ellie" is actually an acronym — E.L.E. — which stands for, " extinction-level event." Two days later, Beck announces that the Wolf–Biederman comet is on course to impact the Earth in roughly one year, and could cause humanity's extinction. He reveals that the United States and Russia have been constructing the Messiah in orbit, a spacecraft to transport a team to alter the comet's path with nuclear bombs.

The Messiah later launches, with a crew of five American astronauts, and one Russian cosmonaut. They land on the outer-most layer of the comet, and drill the nuclear bombs deep beneath its surface, but it shifts into the sunlight. Consequently, Mission Commander Oren Monash is blinded, and an explosive release of gas propels medical officer Gus Partenza into space. The remaining crew escape, and detonate the bombs. However, rather than deflect the comet, the bombs split it in two. Beck announces the mission's failure, and that both pieces—the larger now named Wolf and the smaller named Biederman—are still headed for Earth. Wolf is on a collision course with western Canada, and its impact is expected to fill the atmosphere with dust, blocking all sunlight for two years and creating an impact winter that will kill all life on the planet's surface.

Martial law is imposed and a lottery selects 800,000 Americans to join 200,000 pre-selected individuals in underground shelters in Missouri 's limestone bluffs. Lerner, who has become an MSNBC anchor during the crisis, is pre-selected, as are the Biedermans, as gratitude for Leo discovering the comet. Lerner's mother, Robin, upon learning most senior citizens are ineligible for the lottery, commits suicide. To save his girlfriend Sarah and her family, Leo marries her, but Sarah's parents are not allowed to accompany her and she refuses to go without them.

A last-ditch effort to deflect the comets with ICBMs fails. Upon arrival at the shelter, Leo decides to return to Virginia to find Sarah. On a motorcycle, he reaches Sarah's family on the freeway, which is heavily filled with traffic. Her parents force her to leave with Leo and her baby brother, while they remain behind. The MSNBC crew draws straws to decide who will board an evacuation helicopter with Lerner. At the last minute, Lerner gives up her seat to her colleague, Beth, and her young daughter. She instead travels to her childhood beach home and reconciles with her estranged father.

Biederman hits the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and creates a megatsunami that destroys several countries and much of the East Coast of the United States, reaching the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys plus Europe and Africa. Millions including Lerner, her father, and Sarah's parents perish while countless more are left homeless. Leo, Sarah, Sarah's brother and other survivors make it to safety in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The Messiah crew, now dangerously low on life-support and propellant fuel, decide to sacrifice themselves by flying deep inside Wolf, and detonating their remaining nuclear bombs. They all say goodbye to their loved ones before executing their plan. Millions of pieces of ice and rock burn harmlessly in the atmosphere and light up the sky for an hour, averting further catastrophe.

Beck addresses thousands at an under-construction replacement United States Capitol, and announces the start of rebuilding their home that the Messiah has saved.