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Space Science

Deep Impact Blasts Off For Comet Tempel 1 203

Posted by timothy from the this-tempel-is-a-body dept.
Wynken de Word writes "NASA's Deep Impact, a copper-fortified, comet-busting spacecraft, was launched Wednesday afternoon. 'NASA had a single second - at precisely eight seconds past 1:47 p.m. - to send Deep Impact on a 431-million-kilometre, six-month voyage to Comet Tempel 1.' The goal is to blast a big hole in the comet and check out what's preserved inside. Also see the Deep Impact site."
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Deep Impact Blasts Off For Comet Tempel 1 More

Deep Impact Blasts Off For Comet Tempel 1

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  • Do You Suppose... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
    Do you suppose there may be people [religioustolerance.org] on earth who might be angred by a blasphemous attack on a heavenly chariot?

    "cor! they put a ding in our chariot! call AAA!"

    I sure hope they did a better job of packing this one.

    • Read the last story on Deep Impact, it may be in the science section only. There most certainly were a couple of badly informed peeps whining about us possibly destroying a unique member of our solar system :)
    • I went to your link and started reading a bit. I never knew any specifics about their beliefs except the part about how there was a UFO behind Hale-Bopp. The site was talking about how "Do" came to earth 2000 years ago with his female companion "Ti," whom he called "heavenly father." I couldn't help but think of the nerds from Dude, Where's my Car (long live Zoltran!). It's like they took a bunch of elements of Christianity and added their own weird twist on it, then threw in a few sci-fi-ish names. I could

  • Damn (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheKidWho ( 705796 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:33PM (#11340324)
    Where is Bruce Willis when you need him.
  • The goal is to blast a big hole in the comet and check out what's preserved inside i bet it's rock inside... just a guess :)
  • Wouldn't the impact destroy all instruments? or after making a dent, will they plan to send another carft to look at it :-)

  • Yes but... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wont the inhabitants of this comet regard this as an act of war?

  • editorializing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phriedom ( 561200 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:36PM (#11340364)
    "Do comets and our own planet have something in common? This clever mission could answer the question once and for all. "

    Very rarely is anything complex answered once and for all.

    • Hmmph! (Score:3, Funny)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
      "Do comets and our own planet have something in common? This clever mission could answer the question once and for all. "

      Very rarely is anything complex answered once and for all.

      Obviously you don't read the Weekly World News.

      BTW, chief NASA engineer Bat Boy assures me that everything is going as planned.

    • In this case, it may well be.

      For example, if Deep Impact actually collides (including any measurable gravity-only interactions) with the comet, then we'll know that the comet and our planet have something in common - they're material objects. Therefore, this experiment CAN answer something once and for all.

      On the other hand, if there is no collision, and the spacecraft passes right through the comet ghost-like, then we'll know that the comet has less in common with Earth than we might otherwise expect.

      A

      • As for complexity, any metaphysics philosopher or string theorist (is there a difference? [ducks]) could tell you that the nature of matter (or this new strange substance, in case there's no collision) is anything but simple.

        No joke. I just read yesterday where the old laster-through-the-double-slit experiment was done using cold rubidium atoms instead of photons. They produced the expected interference pattern, showing that wave-particle duality applies to matter in the form of atoms.

        The strange (a

    • That comets are really extra-terrestrial
      spacecraft flying in "stealth" mode.
      And they are really going to be pissed
      about NASA's deliberate collision. NASA
      can expect an envoy from the intergalactic
      transportation safety board (ITSB), demanding
      just compensation for damage to the space
      craft, as well as delaying/impeding/traumatizing
      the intergalactic travelers.

  • Intentional? (Score:5, Funny)

    by StevenHenderson ( 806391 ) <stevehenderson@NOspam.gmail.com> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:36PM (#11340377)
    For the first time, NASA is setting off on a collision course with a comet

    Good to see that for once a crash-course is intentional for NASA. Mayhap they have found their niche... :)

  • More information (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was recently reading a book [amazon.com] which talked about the possibility of projects such as this. It is well worth a read if you can get your hands on it.

    Also, the article says how a lot of the simulation was done on Open Source software, namely this [sourceforge.net]. Give it a download.

  • I was just thinking... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:37PM (#11340391)
    The goal is to blast a big hole in the comet and check out what's preserved inside.

    Is that what has happened to the goatse-guy?
  • Someone at NASA is a fan of Paramonunt's 'Deep Impact' (1998)
    • Actually, if the article I read was correct, they decided on the name around the same time the movie was either in production, or moving towards production. It mentioned that some of the people on the project also consulted for the movie, but it's possible that they did actually take the name for this project before the movie.

    • Re:Where has originalty gone? (Score:4, Informative)

      by nuclear305 ( 674185 ) * on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:48PM (#11340555)
      I'm sure you just forgot this after reading the article, but the names of the movie and project were apparently derived independently of each other--and around the same time.

      It's not like 2004 rolled around and someone who saw the movie decided to call the project 'Deep Impact'

    • Rewind to Jan 2nd [slashdot.org], and search. (You can pick up a few +5 posts for reuse while you're there.)

  • As always ..... (Score:5, Informative)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:38PM (#11340406)
    As always there are updates at spaceflightnow.com [spaceflightnow.com]. It appears the spacecraft has safed itself as of a few minutes ago....not good.

  • future news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Norgus ( 770127 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:39PM (#11340413)
    "nasa accidentally redirects comet, now headed for earth"

    Doh!

  • Perhaps the most interesting quote of the article (Score:5, Funny)

    by heyitsme ( 472683 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:39PM (#11340417) Homepage
    The impactor will disintegrate instantly when it hits, as will its small payload, a compact disc containing more than 500,000 names of people who wanted to vicariously tag along.

    Man, I want to be on that CD!

  • If missed.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:39PM (#11340420) Journal
    "NASA had a single second - at precisely eight seconds past 1:47 p.m. - to send Deep Impact on a 431-million-kilometre, six-month voyage to Comet Tempel 1" Missing this window of oportunity will prevent the residents of ISS their yearly alotment of ice, a necessary precursor for snowcones.
  • Does anyone else find it disturbing that NASA named a mission aimed to penetrate a comet after a [bad] movie about a comet penetrating the Earth?

    I guess it's better than Armageddon - they probably couldn't get funding for that one.

  • What's inside? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:42PM (#11340459)
    Rock.
    M$'s sense of morality.
    Linux community's sense of Joe6Pack Useability(tm)
    A chewy creamy center
  • Hopefully the comet doesn't pissed at us and "drop" by for a visit.

    My bunker is ready. Is yours???

  • Possible implications (Score:3, Interesting)

    by davidmcn ( 606752 ) <dmcnelis AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:52PM (#11340607) Homepage
    We, as a race, don't know all that much really about "whats out there." But we are still able to figure out where a comet is going to be an how to impact it. But did we stop to think about the possible implications this mission could have on the universe? They were talking on the news about how it will probably make a crater the size of a football field. We already know that that is a huge amount of force.

    Think about it like this, you have an 800 pound mass (the 1st rocket, destined for impact) traveling at 37000 kph. Effectively creating the force of 4 and a half tons of TNT going off. If this explosion happened at the surface it would probably make no difference whatsoever, but its not. Will this impact alter the trajectory of the comet? It might only slightly shift it, but for a planet far far away, that slight shift might be enough to cause a ELE on the planet that the comet might now ultamitely hit.

    I realize its a longshot scenario, and I'm sure taken into account at some point. But was it taken seriously enough?

    Anyway, just my little, "are we considering everything" thoughts....
    • It's possible to predict the solar system very far into the future with very high accuracy, since it's an almost perfect Newtonian system- it's in a vacuum, so there's no friction, and the masses and volumes involved are very large, so there are no tiny, chaotic behaviors to worry about. About the only thing that could make for a large inaccuracy in the prediction is a massive body NASA hasn't detected yet, but AFAIK the last time that happened was the discovery of Pluto in 1930. NASA knows exactly what thi
    • Any species advanced enough to figure out that we were responsibe for deflecting a rock and to travel light years seeking retribution for our misdeeds is advanced enough to deal with said space rock before it does any harm.

      Not to mention that rock is in orbit around the Sun so it is much more likly it will hit us than anyone else.

      I think you are vastly overestimating our ability to have any effect the rest of the galaxy let alone our own solar system.
    • Impossible. The comet is gravitationally bound by the Sun; to escape the solar system would require the addition of far more energy than this probe will deliver.

      Whether the comet will shift onto a course that will impact the Earth a billion years from now, when it otherwise would have missed... well, to be honest, who cares? On that timescale, this comet is as likely as any other given comet to hit us - and additionally, just as likely to hit us if we give it a random nudge as if we don't...

  • Launch Window (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:52PM (#11340610)
    Just to clarify, Deep Impact didn't have a launch window of only 1:47:08 PM EST, it also could have launched at 1:08:20 PM EST [64.233.179.104] for 12 January 2004. It actually had until 28 January to launch [spacetoday.net].
  • Will this save us if there is a comet on a collision course?

  • Childish, I know . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by Raccroc ( 238757 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:56PM (#11340666)
    Deep Impact - $330 millon dollars and it looks like a vibrator...Where the fuck are the jokes?

  • wack Saturn moon tommorrow! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:58PM (#11340684)
    On a related topic, Huygens impacts Saturn 36 hours from the time of this posting. This is the most distant physical impact ever (since Galileo sailed into Jupiter's clouds). Will we find rock, ice, or a hydrocarbon ocean?
  • on one hand, it states "[the impactor]is designed to obliterate itself, as it excavates a crater possibly large enough to swallow the Roman Coliseum", but also "In the world of science, this is the astronomical equivalent of a 767 airliner running into a mosquito."

    I'm not an aerospace engineer, but is it possible for a mosquito to make a crater on the surface of a 767 airliner?
  • What if it misses and DESTROYS THE MOON!!!

    Then we'll have gone to far and the world will end in chaos, with man living as animals and psychic mutnnnts ruling the world. :D
  • 'The goal is to blast a big hole in the comet and check out what's preserved inside.'

    Won't the impact change the makeup/properties of what *was* preserved inside? If nothing else, it's going to have a higher than normal copper content (and some bits of plastic from that CD).

    On the other hand, it does sound like fun. I *love* blowing stuff up!!!
  • Has anyone ever wondered if comets are possibly ancient spaceships or satelites that may or may not be working anymore and have accumulated a bunch of space crud?

    I mean, say a ship had taken some damage in space and its air and water leaked out, wouldn't it just freeze around the ship?

    Then you add any dust particles that it encounters sticking to it so that over thousands of years, it just ends up looking like the dirty ice balls we all see through our telescopes.

    I know it sounds all sci-fi and stu
  • Earth declares war on another celestial body, invasion fleet launches to intercept!

    It's ALL about the marketing.

  • I've heard that Karen Meech [hawaii.edu], who's one of the investigators on the Deep Impact science team, will be coordinating observations from a bunch of the Mauna Kea Observatories [hawaii.edu] using different instruments, different wavelengths, et cetera.

    (Yes, I [hawaii.edu] will be asking if I can be "on shift" that night... and if I don't get lucky, I'll probably go partway up the mountain for some stargazing [hawaii.edu] and perhaps a look at a comet.)

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