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| Spacecraft setting off to shoot comet with 370kg bullet |
| 2004-12-31 |
| American scientists are planning the ultimate drive-by shooting, 268m miles from home. They will launch a spacecraft next month on a six-month crash course in cometary science. On July 4 the spacecraft, Deep Impact, will blast a copper bullet about a metre in diameter into the path of 4-mile-wide block of ice and dust called Comet 9P/Tempel 1. With luck, and if the calculations are right, the comet will hit the 370kg (820lb) projectile at 23,000mph. The projectile will be vapourised, but it should also blow a hole in the comet big enough to house the RomanColosseum. The mothership will witness the whole thing, and send pictures back to scientists in Pasadena. It will be the closest ever study of a phenomenon that medieval observers thought to herald disaster. In one sense, they were right: a direct collision between a comet the size of Tempel 1 and the Earth could effectively wipe out human civilisation. Such impacts have happened many times in geological history, and could do so again. Researchers have begun to think of ways to prevent them, but nobody has any idea of the mass, or density, of a comet - whether they are like frozen concrete, or have the texture of frosted candyfloss. Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer. "We will be capturing the whole thing on the most powerful camera to fly in deep space," said Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, the scientific leader of the project. "We know so little about the structure of cometary nuclei that we need exceptional equipment to ensure that we capture the event." Deep Impact will take off from Cape Canaveral on January 12, make half an orbit around the sun, and cross the comet's path on July 4. The collision with the projectile will happen when the mothership is several thousand miles away, and the impact will release the energy equivalent to 4.4 tonnes of TNT, throwing out a cloud of dust and ice. If all goes well, enough of this will settle to allow Deep Impact a clear view of the damage as it gets to within about 300 miles of the comet. By that time, the Earth will also have moved through half of its annual orbit, keeping pace with the spacecraft, so that the collision can be seen by earthbound astronomers and space telescopes such as the Hubble. A spacecraft sailed through the coma of Comet Wild-2 in January, and will bring samples back to Earth in 2006. Another craft, Rosetta, was launched this year to land on a comet in 2014. But Deep Impact will be the first to send back data from such a meeting. Comets delivered water for the Earth's oceans, and they carry complex organic molecules that may have played a role in triggering life on Earth. Tempel 1, first spotted in 1867 by Ernst Wilhelm Tempel of Marseilles orbits the sun every five and a half years. It is not likely to suffer any permanent damage in the collision, or to be knocked into a more dangerous orbit. "This is the astronomical equivalent of a 767 airliner running into a mosquito," said Don Yeomans, a mission scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #27 If it starts to evade run like hell for the nearest cave. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-12-31 9:51:01 PM |
| #26 I'm not sure there's a whole lot of commonality between these rendezvous with planetary objects and trying to intercept an incoming missile. A comet is very big, it's not radar-stealthy, it's travelling on a well-known trajectory, it's not performing any evasive maneuvers, and it can be approached in a leisurely fashion from an optimal direction. Hitting an incoming missile would be a whole different ballgame, I would think. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-12-31 9:37:56 PM |
| #25 Mike K - that sounds dangerously like a missile defense system, which as we know from Reagan's "Star Wars" dreams, won't work....oh (oops! /MSM). |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-31 9:24:13 PM |
| #24 "Tempel 1....is not likely to suffer any permanent damage in the collision, or to be knocked into a more dangerous orbit." Famous last words? And what about the potential invasion of earth by infuriated little green men with bulging eyes from Tempel 1? |
| Posted by: Bryan 2004-12-31 9:21:28 PM |
| #23 ...Actually, it seems to me that if we can put a 'bullet' into a comet, we can do the same thing to a warhead or a satellite. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-12-31 8:09:02 PM |
| #22 Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer. The message here is to never insert a joke into a scientific article. |
| Posted by: WingedAvenger 2004-12-31 7:31:47 PM |
| #21 think of all the minerals lost to this "cowboy" experiment (guns and all)! A resource belonging to teh developing nations of Gaia. We'll be asked to put an equivalent chunk of change in a UN-escrow account |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-31 7:24:31 PM |
| #20 UN Security Council has passed a resolution to negotiate with the comet before it will authorize the use of force. |
| Posted by: Capt America 2004-12-31 7:20:45 PM |
| #19 About Sagan's Nuclear Winter Theories. I suspect he was off slightly on his golbal temperature effects but remember one volcano was enough to couse the "Year Without Summer", 1819 IIRC. The Amount of crap that would be pumped into the atmosphere from the fires associated with a nuclear war should have some effect. IIRC the Kuwaiti oil fires did have regional effects. The effects of an asteriod or comet are hard to quantify but for a given mass at a given speed hthe amount of energy released in the impact can be precisely calculated. Add in the effects from fires and any possible volcanic events that such an impact might trigger is completely incalcuable. Curiously two events that happened around the time of the demise of the Dinosaurs, the impact in the Yucatan and the volcanic event that fromed the Deccan Traps in India. These two areas of the world just happened to be on opposite sides of the globe when the impact happened. Some Geologists think that the two may be related |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2004-12-31 6:57:57 PM |
| #18 LOL - I know, just the possible unintended consequences, as usual, get me going |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-31 6:10:05 PM |
| #17 Frank - In space, no one can hear you scream, you know. The whistling would drown it out, heh. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-12-31 5:53:11 PM |
| #16 nobody has any idea of the mass, or density, of a comet - whether they are like frozen concrete, or have the texture of frosted candyfloss. + "This is the astronomical equivalent of a 767 airliner running into a mosquito," These two statements don't add up |
| Posted by: Unegum Whaimp3886 2004-12-31 5:41:32 PM |
| #15 dang - with that hole in it what if we have to put up with an orbit-long 200db whistle effect? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-31 3:15:17 PM |
| #14 Article: In one sense, they were right: a direct collision between a comet the size of Tempel 1 and the Earth could effectively wipe out human civilisation. I wonder if this theory is the offspring of Carl Sagan's unsupported theories about nuclear winter. You gotta love how pseudo-science results in crap conclusions piled up upon crap premises, so that the whole thing resembles a freshly-laid glob of elephant poop. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-12-31 3:10:58 PM |
| #13 The next time that thing comes around, will it still have a hole in it? |
| Posted by: John Q. Citizen 2004-12-31 3:09:26 PM |
| #12 Kewl! Its worth living through the WoT to get to see something like this. Asimov and Heinlein must be rolling in their graves because they died a few years too soon. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-12-31 3:02:04 PM |
| #11 ZF- Who else worships a rock, hmmm? |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-12-31 2:35:50 PM |
| #10 36" diameter copper bullet? Haven't seen those at Hiram's Guns and Spirits |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-31 1:49:42 PM |
| #9 ZF, it's the fact that they're bringing cans of spray paint that makes it vandalism... |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2004-12-31 1:16:40 PM |
| #8 Article: Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer. Shooting something at a hunk of rock hurtling through space is vandalism? Sounds like these people have graduated from worshipping living things (fauna and flora) to worshipping rocks. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-12-31 12:34:41 PM |
| #7 "Yer not from around here, are ya boy? Travis, shewt that thing!" |
| Posted by: BH 2004-12-31 12:23:42 PM |
| #6 Ooops, add Rockwell to that list, for the control systems, maybe .... |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-12-31 12:10:10 PM |
| #5 More likely, Lockheed Martin or Northrup Grumman LOL. Practice for destroying threatening meteors, maybe ... not to mention that we know far less than we'd like about the composition and origin of comets. |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-12-31 12:08:36 PM |
| #4 Twenty bucks says Halliburton's behind it all... |
| Posted by: nada 2004-12-31 8:53:26 AM |
| #3 Website for the Deep Impact project is here. Pretty interesting. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-12-31 8:09:14 AM |
| #2 It is not likely to suffer any permanent damage in the collision, or to be knocked into a more dangerous orbit. Famous last words. This has the looks of a Zionist trick to ravage rare resources belonging to all of the solar system instead of the selfish few. There.... let's see what we get. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-12-31 7:55:38 AM |
| #1 Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer. I have this feeling that some group is going to eventually complain about this. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-12-31 2:34:57 AM |