Update [2005-7-3 12:53:22 by shari]:This link leads to a page on Space.com where you can check out live webcasts.
My inner science geek will be checking this out this 4th of July weekend: NASA’s Deep Impact project, the 8th Discovery mission.
…Deep Impact’s Impactor probe — an 820-pound (372-kilogram), camera-equipped chunk of copper — will be placed in Tempel 1’s path and ultimately slam into the comet at about 23,000 miles an hour (37,014 kilometers an hour). Snapping images until the last, Impactor is designed to give researchers their closest look yet at a comet’s surface.
“We hope to get 15 centimeters resolution,” Yeomans told SPACE.com, adding that extreme dust conditions could still limit Impactor’s camera. “That’s unprecedented resolution.”
Meanwhile, Flyby will record the event — along with a myriad of Earth-based and orbital instruments — with telescopes capable of two-meter resolution and an infrared spectrometer to determine the mineral make-up of Tempel 1’s innards.
For us on the Pacific Coast, it’ll happen a little before 11 PM, and on the East Coast, in the wee morning hours of July 4th.
May want to check out the astronomy sites for the latest buzz.
SkyandTelescope.com
JPL’s site
My personal reaction, getting some distance from my inner science geek, is to wonder why they couldn’t figure out a less invasive way of doing this.
is to be as invasive as possible so as to find out what is below the surface. The crater will be about the size of a football field and apparently the explosion may even visible from Earth.
Interestingly, the probe will essentially get overtaken at that speed since both it and the comet are flying in the same direction.
I do hope all goes well. Unfortunately, it will probably be daylight here.
for the clarification.
Damn, damn, damn . . . it is cloudy here in Seattle (Surprise!)
And it is nimbostratus clouds that last all day here.
I have the binocs ready and hoping for a break in the weather.
And if you are wondering why I am complaining about cloudy skys now – this weather started today and has a tendency to last for about a week.
I understand it would be awfully difficult to spy the comet via binoculars, maybe by telescope, and the impact will not cause an explosion.
I love stuff like this. Thanks for posting it. The thought of actually being able to see the impact is mind boggling.
I wish so much more of our resources could be put into exploration and endeavoring to better understand our origins rather than building war machines that only threaten to hasten our demise.
I’ll have to check the times for southern New England. Hopefully it won’t be too late, although that has’nt stopped my wife, three kids, and me in the past from huddling together in blankets at 2 in the morning just to catch a once in a lifetime meteor shower :0)
the JPL site (Deep Impact site in the main post above) will try to have it ‘live’, whatever that means, and they’ll have an update 1AM PST on what happened.