Posted on 06/28/2005 4:43:23 PM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON, June 27 - A two-stage spacecraft called Deep Impact is about to make an ambitious attempt to dissect a comet by slamming into it and blowing some of its innards into space for all to see.
Launched from Florida on Jan. 12, NASA's Deep Impact is nearing the end of a finely calibrated 268-million-mile journey that puts comet Tempel 1 within its sights.
An 820-pound copper-core "impactor" is to smash into the comet's nucleus at 23,000 miles an hour in the early hours of July 4, an unprecedented event that will, if all goes well, be witnessed by its companion craft and numerous observatories in space and on Earth. Because of the distance and timing of the encounter, experts said that only Earth observers in the Pacific area using telescopes were likely to see the comet and any evidence of the impact.
Rick Grammier, the mission's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said the final part of the encounter 83 million miles away was so intricate and so fast that the twin ships would have to handle these maneuvers on their own without help from human controllers. "It's a bullet trying to hit a second bullet with a third bullet, in the right place at the right time," he said.
Scientists say the impact, which should occur at about 1:52 a.m. Eastern time, could excavate a crater as large as a sports stadium and send plumes of material from the comet's core far into space, allowing the first view of the pristine inner material that makes up these icy bodies.
Comets are believed to be remnants of the materials that formed the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. Astronomers believe comets' interiors have undergone little change since then and contain the pristine ice...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
~*PiNg*~
Hope they remembered to convert from centimeters to inches.
ping
I hope that the Poindexters at NASA pondered that factor...
Did we get permission from the Watermelons?
Are people actually serious when they ask this question?
"Spacecraft Is on a Collision Course With a Comet, Intentionally"
Charge the operator with reckless driving.
Think of a washing machine smashing into Manhattan. It will be fun to see, but the magnitude of difference between the two objects is too large for any kind fo dangerous impact.
Read this:
Cosmic Crash Won’t Destroy Comet or Earth http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050628_deepimpact_effect.html
Cosmic Crash Won’t Destroy Comet or Earth
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1432678/posts
They wanted to nuke the moon, and to upstage the commies in the space race, we had Project Red Socks.
Leaves me wondering if this is not just practice for a big one coming our way.
Comet Crasher ping!!!!!!!!!!
What's the point of this? Why are we spending Millions - if not, Billions - on this project? I see absolutely no scientific benefit from this project.
This has 'conception' written all over it. Hope no one left any DNA in the impactor.
It's fer the chillldrun?
I dunno - I guess someone somewhere feels compelled to waste more taxpayer dollars on foolish things.
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