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NASA's Deep Impact
NivenMK1 writes "The Seattle Times has an interesting article on NASA's plan to nail the comet Tempel 1 with a chunk of copper the size of a bathtub on July 4 this year. This copper 'bullet' is intended to strike the comet at approximately 23,000 mph and hit with a force equivalent to 4.7 tons of TNT.
Scientists hope to discover what exactly the comet is made of and what changes have occurred to the outer layers with reference to the core."
...that there's someting dodgy there: 4th of July this year? The article is either strangely premature, or outdated.
July 4 this year?! What a coincidence - it's the date the project I'm working on now should be finished to.
...where the bullet misses its target and curves back round to origin.
Don't miss guys - and watch out for Hubble!
AT&ROFLMAO
This year, July ... ...
I'm looking forward
Would it not be cheaper/better to drop a lump of high explosive on it rather than a heavy lump of copper?
http://blog.nexusuk.org
....But hitting a rock on Independance day sounds like a bad idea, what if it's an Alien's rock?
We can't just keep going around the Solar system bashing things up that's not ours!
Why copper?
Is it because Tempel 1 is known to not contain any copper itself, so it makes the spectral signature easier to read?
Are there any possible issues like destruction of important "environments"(if a comet could be called an evironment) if the comet is blown to pieces by this experiment? I mean, is it possible that important microorganisms or other important/rare/valuable occurences may be destroyed if this comment is blown up? It kind of reminds me of some of the unintended consequences of mans earlier forays into new environments on earth. I just wonder if these kind of scenarios have been considered.
820 pounds, from the first sentence of paragraph 3.
Was Morgan Freeman involved in it in any way?
The article doesn't state if this velocity is relative to Cape Cod or relative to the comet. It makes a big difference.
Smash a comet?
Sorry, can't do it. It's part of a national park and thus must be kept in its pristine state.
I wonder if there is any danger of some chunks coming to Earth that would be large enough to survive the entry into our atmosphere and cause some damage at the white house? One can always hope.
They'll develop a working missile defense system. All kidding aside how hard is it going to be to position this giant copper bullet in the path of a speeding comet? How acurately can they predict the comets path (whenever I here about near earth passes they are always given in wide ranges as to how near they actually came). So maybe I just naieve but the idea that we could hurl a giant block of metal into a comet traveling 23,000 miles per hour millions of miles away, I feel like a kid again at the wonderment.
That's the only answer...
rewriting history since 2109
Our comets are now under attack. Please join the Society for the Preservation of Comets, before it's too late.
Hopefully together we can make a difference. It's time to stop these bigoted scientists from damaging comets with bathtub size copper slugs, just "to see what will happen."
Without comets, there would be no space snowballs. This must stop.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
...NASA is lying. The comet is actually heading straight for Earth and the best plan they have is to launch a copper bathtub filled with Bruce Willis.
"Nobody's sure what will happen next"
Spending 311 million dollars without knowing what happens next doesnt seem a very nice idea.
My guess.... It'll be a huge bomb and will blow up the universe!
I cen see it now. Joe freaks out and hurls chunks of comet at earth while Fay's eye glazes over with shock. Helicopters swarm the air blaring Pennies From Heaven over huge loudspeakers. Trembling earthlings make their pleas to $deity(s) SUddenly Godzilla and Mothra appear out of nowhere. Godzilla hurls balls of magma in escort for mothra who flies toward the comet and Joe. Will mankind survive. Why did he mess with nature (again). Coming soon to a theatre near you. A NASA production.
Unfortunately, the MPAA sent a cease and desist order to NASA informing them that this would be infringing on the IP of one of their client's copyrighted movies.
Hence, plan B involves throwing a bathtub at the comet instead. Go NASA!
... am I the only one who thought this was the name of a new NASA produced pr0n flick?
Look at the numbers:
The impact power of the copper rod is 4+ tonnes of TNT. IF you wanted to double the blast, you would have to send more than 4 tonnes of explosives.
at 30km/s+, the kinetic energy of the material is bigger than the chemical energy of explosives.
The added energy just doesnt matter anymore because it would be difficult to time the blast, plus the softness of the explosives would reduce the impact penetration.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
More likely, scientists say, it will blast open a crater the size of a football stadium.
The copper hammer, equipped with a camera, guidance and maneuvering systems, will move directly into the comet's path, like a deer stepping in front of a speeding pickup truck.
Deer in front of pickups? Ugh! Bathtub-sized bullets, (American) tons of TNT... sadly no VW cars mentioned, but I've got my fingers crossed for the follow-up article!
We might have to send a crew of rednecks up to drill into it first.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Is this a test of a planetary defence system? Imagine if the dinosaurs could have had one of those.
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
Am I the only one who feels this is the start to a disaster movie?
"The year is 2004, and the scientists of the day decide to crack open a comet with a bullet the size of a bathtub. But then the unthinkable happens. The comet bullet causes the comet to change path and come right towards Earth and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Will all Earth will be destroyed? Will our hero be able to save the world? There is only one way to find out..."
Coming to cinemas everywhere this Summer.
da w00t. mtfnpy?
yes.
Hitting comet vs. Missile defense:
1.Long time to learn precise trajectory of comet vs. few minutes with missile.
2.One comet (and big at that) vs. multiple warheads and fake warheads x10.
3.Comet is in a microgravity enviroment, bullet could stop and wait for comet vs. warheads - where can you "wait" for warhead? - you would need constant thrust to maintain position.
4.You miss the comet NASA looks bad for a few weeks. vs. you miss the missile - some city looks bad forever.
I've loved astronomy on a casual basis since childhood and I think it's important to mankind. I'm not one of those people who thinks we should abandon NASA spending because there are still underprivilidged marmasets living in a swamp somewhere or whatever.
But isn't this kind of, uh... wrong? Possibily destroying a comet? It seems so destructive to possibly break apart something that's been circling our sun for millions of years.
I understand that comets are more like "dirty snowballs" than things of infinite beauty, and I can definitely understand the scientific reasons for this mission because they're going to get all kinds of data that they couldn't get otherwise.
This seems kind of wrong to me, though.
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What happens if the comet doesn't like being shot with the world's biggest bullet, and decides to come after us? Has NASA factored this into their plans?
This project has been around since 2001; probably a dup /. article somewhere... Anyway, here is the NASA website, which gives more details on the mission.
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/
ph34r teh p0w3r 0f th3 c0w
...Comets are known (thought) to be less solid than asteroids, most (not sure about this one) seem to be made largely of ice. You can imagine how dangerous these iceballs might be if they were to enter the atmosphere, but I like water vapor, even with unknown additives, over pieces of rock, if it fragments. It does seem like a less invasive technique might be available, why kill a comet (with unknown ramifications)if you don't have to.
This would make a great Mythbusters episode: can you launch a copper bathtub into space and destroy a comet? Cue the narrator: "Adam and Jamie are eager to send the crash dummy Buster into space in his homemade copper spaceship, and hope that he'll live to tell the tale."
Comets are usually ice and frozen gases (dry ice, ammonia ...etc.)
:)
Heavy metals are very rare in comets . Also copper over iron , because copper is much more rarer than iron . Aluminium or Iron would be too common , silver/gold would be better than copper - but who can afford that
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Anyone care to see what happens the next time this sucker does a flyby?
"What do you mean it's going to hit us this time?"
this does not sound logic at all...
if the chemical composition of the comet it is unknown, how "safe" it is to force it in an explosion with cooper...?
if it is known to be "safe" for the comet to interact with cooper in that explosion, then the chemical composition of the comet it is already KNOWN and that makes NO reason for the experiment.
sounds to me that NASA is like a little 3 years child that want's to play with fire...
Actually a large sum of that debt is to the people that live in this country.
The geeks at NASA never really grew up: Their jobs are all about neat toys and breaking things.
Amazing that despite all our centuries of civilized sophistication the best way to figure out how things work is still to break them. Kids break clocks. Cooks break locks. NASA breaks giant icy rocks.
And even trillions of dollars in debt, we still manage to keep our poor people fed (our homeless don't starve, they just live outside!), our crazy projects running (where's *your* country's golden comet-smashing bathtub?!), and still have the cash and free time to win a war (yeah, you heard me! It's slow and ugly, but *we're winning*!).
So suck on that, you pompous twat. Oh, and I voted for Kerry, so even the losing side over here would like to take this opportunity to tell you to blow it out your ass!
Captains additional: Does this mean we can add 'bath tub' to the ISO weights and measures along with VW Beetle, football field and 18 wheel truck?
Just launch Bruce Willis frozen in carbonite!!!
Excuses, explanations, or what?
1.Long time to learn precise trajectory of comet vs. few minutes with missile.
Outweighed by much shorter distance.
2.One comet (and big at that) vs. multiple warheads and fake warheads x10.
But many failed tests had no decoys or only easily distinguished decoys.
3.Comet is in a microgravity enviroment, bullet could stop and wait for comet vs. warheads - where can you "wait" for warhead? - you would need constant thrust to maintain position.
Huh? The mass bullet should "stop and wait"? Maybe this grasp of physics is why the 'scientists' at 'Defense' can't hit the mark.
4.You miss the comet NASA looks bad for a few weeks. vs. you miss the missile - some city looks bad forever.
And how exactly does this explain the failures?
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
Something else is going on. They can pick pieces of comet out of the moon if they wanted it. No point in blowing money on this unless it's for defense. Copper my ass.
Another reason they are doing a kinetic impact is because they want to judge the structure of the comet. Right now, scientists don't really know if the comet's consistency is that of a fluffy snowball or a hard chunk of ice. If you used explosives, you would have melting of the ice, whatever its consistency, and would get less information about the construction of the comet. Once possibility is that the comet might be loosely packed enough that the impactor goes in one side and flies out the other....
Also, I'm surprised the article submitter didn't include a link to the mission website.....
NASA's getting pretty bored....
we still manage to keep our poor people fed (our homeless don't starve, they just live outside!)
Perhaps you should read this article
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=286105
"Unfortunately, the blessing of abundant food is not shared by all Americans," Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said. "A recent report from our Department of Agriculture documented an increase in hunger in America, particularly among our children."
Does this mean we can add 'bath tub' to the ISO weights and measures along with VW Beetle, football field and 18 wheel truck?
and "Libraries of Congress"...
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
And we're gonna blow it up to find out what it's made of.
So much for enlightened science. What practical purpose could this experiment serve, anyway?
Get fucking real.
Have you taken a look at the rest of the world lately?
What happens when they find that there were several people from the Heaven's Gate cult that were aboard the comet? Will NASA scientists be charged with murder if those people already killed themselves on Earth first? Or is this more of a wrongful explosion suit? Maybe it would be more of a moving vehicle accident - and if so, is space considered a no-fault area? I hope the comet dwellers have insurance!
Questions, questions....
How acurately can they predict the comets path (whenever I here about near earth passes they are always given in wide ranges as to how near they actually came).
You hear about near-Earth passes, as you call them, because they're always the first time we've noticed said object getting close to the Earth. This comet (and many others, plus asteroids, etc) has a pretty well-known orbit around the Sun. We have plenty of observations and can accurately predict where it's going to be at any given point in time (barring things like orbital changes due to outgassing, disintegration, etc).
There's another object in the sky that we can do this with: the Moon. It's VERY close to Earth, yet we can be pretty safe in saying it ain't about to hit us. Lots of observations == confidence in a body's motion.
The "scary" ones you hear about are new objects we've never seen before, and all of sudden they look like they're coming "close". Once we get enough observations of them, we can calculate their orbits, and you pretty much never hear about them again.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Reasons hitting a missile is hard and hitting a comet is easier.
It's hard to hit a missile because you don't have much time to measure and calculate all you need for an intersecting path.
Doesn't disprove my point that missile defense is a tough nut. Most likely impossible for the near future at least.
You have plenty of time to calculate an intersecting path with a comet, you can simply launch the mass bullet into an intersecting orbit and let it be. Can't do that with missile defense.
Explains nothing - simply another reason hitting comet is no sweat, hitting missile is hard.
I once spoke to someone who works on the Deep Impact project, and he said that, after the Mars Polar Odyssey crashed, their motto became "Deep Impact: We're Supposed to Crash."
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
I was just trying to show that it was not as rosy, as the parent post indicated.
I am from Northen Europe, and I just have to look out the window, to see a better place that America.
Yes, and I wonder if you'll still be able to do that after your pathetic welfare state collapses in on itself, or after muslim extremists have become such a large portion of your country's population that you have to follow all kinds of crazy shiara laws.
I think that America is closer to collapse than my country is.
People are just looking for a reason to complain.
They won't be happy until they get their way.
It's not nearly as bad here as people make it out to be.
People like to blame it all on Bush, but the job market crashed when CLINTON was president NOT Bush.
I should know I was right in the middle of it and I remember it like it was yesterday.
But anyway. YOU don't even live here. The only thing you have to go on is BIAS media and these selfish nut jobs on Slashdot.
So, the ton of TNT is now a unit of force?
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
I was not blaming it on Bush, since I have no idea if it would be correct.
But I do blame it on american politics, since a country that wealthy, should be able to help their own people more.
I don't live in the US but I have been there a few times, and I must say that I saw a lot of people, in the big cities, that were homeless...
It reminded me quite a lot of Bangkok, with all those homeless and poor people.
So fucking what? Are we having a race to see whose country is going to collapse first? I was just trying to show that things are not as rosy as you make them out to be.
I don't really know how to reply to this because I can only speak from my experinces. I don't really know any starving people who deserve help and aren't getting it, but I'm sure they exist.
Most people are homeless because that's the life style they choose them selves.
I hate to say it but one of my best childhood friends is on the path to being homeless. I've tried my hardest to help him, but its the life style he seems to want.
Not that it's the case for everybody.
I also have family who is poor and takes advantage of the gov. as much as they can. I don't feel sorry for them at all. They are white trash.
I also know a guy who won 1-2 million in a settlement. He quit his job. Assumed he was rich and blew all his money on drugs and crap and now he's broke, has nothing to show for it, has no job, and will find him self on the streets soon enough.
Flamebait?
Is it not the truth?
Help help I'm being repressed!
As far as I can tell things are starting to look up in America.
I hope the aliens onboard the spaceship inside the comet don't mind.
But in that the comet shoots first.
Oh enough already, Muslims are still a minority in Europe, and many have left their previous countries to enjoy the freedoms that Europe has to offer. They're not there to impose Sharia, which wouldn't apply to non-Muslims anyway the same way kosher laws don't apply to non-jews.
is to divert the comet's trajectory just enough so that it lands on earth on bin laden's head. but of course they won't say it!
True, but if you send up an 820lb nuclear warhead you will get a much better fire cracker. Megatons baby, that's what I'm talking about, thousands of your piddly little copper lumps have I in a few pounds of Pu and hydrogen.
So you have to wonder when nations will start nuclear fireworks displays. People want bread, wine and circus. Science has to have it's element of circus to be funded. I hate myself for realizing that. Nations like to intimidate, and traditional fireworks displays included cannons and other military devices. Ah to be entertained by brute intimidation. When it happens, you know that the world is drifting back to feudalism.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Leave it to Americans to come up with a plan along the lines of: "Wonder what that's made of... lets blow it up!"
space should be like an international nature park. you dont go just randomly blowing things up willy nilly.
So original...
" I am from Northen Europe, and I just have to look out the window, to see a better place that America."
It's not technically known as "window": it is called "television".
Now quit looking at "CSI Miami", I want to see the evening news.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
All they have to do is get the Genesis team to try to gently land the copper bullet onto the comet.
I'm sure they must be doing this, but I hadn't read of anyone speculating. This would be an excellent opportunity to direct the slug in, to change the comet's path slightly, and then measure the resultant path and check on their accuracy.
I'm pretty sure we're going to need that capability sooner or later.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
YOUR HEAD ESPLODE!!!!!!!!
Fragmented comet shards predicted to impact earth after scientific experiement goes awry. During an experiment to shatter the coment "Tempel" with a magic bullet, fissures in the comet created unexpected fragmentation lines. Minutes after impact with the comet scientists noticed something terribly wrong with the breakup. One team of scientists involved with the experiement were quoted as yelling "Bag ass!" as they ran from the NASA complex. Other scientists were quoted as saying "umm... uh oh" and "Oh, shit!" Bill Nye the Science Guy was on hand to give this report of what actually went wrong. Bill -
"The scientists here at NASA were trying to use this great big huge gigantic gun of science to shatter this great-big huge gigantic comet and all of a sudden things went terribly wrong! The big comet didn't break like the scientists expected, and all of a sudden People were running around burning papers (Bill) and nametags and (Bill) forging timecards, and..(Bill)....huh?..oh.."
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What would they say when they see this bug chunk of copper hurtling towards them from Earth?
Something isn't right with this picture - copper is very dense! From my calculations an 820 pound brick of solid copper is only 12 inches by 12 inches by 18 inches.
When you tell people the government wants to destroy this natural wonder, there is nearly universal acceptance of this proposal!
Then I sell them lots on Mars, desireable lots, backing on nature preserves.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Is is going to land on the comet head or tail?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Nasa should get funding from the NRA (National Rifle Assoc.) and Smith and Wesson. This will be the largest bullet ever made!
..........FULL STOP.
I wonder if they realize how bad of an idea this is and what the possible future consequences are. I mean this is the kind of stupid crap that is bankrupting our country. Wake up and smell the coffee America! We are broke, and getting more so by the minute. We are just riding the wave to destruction. We are all so preoccupied with ourselves that we don't realize what we are doing to our own country. I mean let's take a look at some facts. One Hollywood is slowly being taken over by Japan. Two Chrysler is now basically owned by Mercedes Benz. The name Daimler even appears before Chrysler which should be a big wake up call. I mean come on; the automotive industry is part of what America is famous for. You know that whole Henry Ford inventing the Automobile thing. We are all so preoccupied with what other people think about us that we don't stop and think when we go to spend our money. Also, the airlines are slowly going out of business and again this is another thing America is famous for. We did invent the airplane you know for those of you that didn't pay attention in history class. Take a good look people all of the things that made America so great are in deep trouble. Then to top it off we have all of these big companies outsourcing jobs to make a better bottom line! Let get it together before there isn't any America left to save!!!!
I, for one, welcome our new Comet Temple Overlords.
Education is the silver bullet.
The residents of Kazalwook were surprised... Comet "Muncho Muncho Nachos" was back a year earlier. They just had time to calculate the trajectory, and make plans for a few thousad Kazalwookians to escape their doomed planet. The mystery remained: why did the comet change its direction? Determined to find out the cause and *finish* off any alien races which might have caused this mischeif, the chosen Kazalwookians set off from their planet...
So I take it that you've never, say, broken a rock in half?
The comet is an inanimate object meandering through space - it has no more of an ethical status than any of the ancient, storied rocks used in the creation of your house. The information gleaned from this test, however, is of potentially great consequence to our understanding of the universe.
I might also add that there are PLENTY more comets where that one came from in the Ort Cloud.
$311 million. 4.8 tone of TNT. On July 4th. ONE BIG BANG. Sheesh, that has to be the biggest fireworks ever.
Still it must vastly help mankind to know that an icy comet is made up of ice.
Oh, what's the worst that could happen? Try: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/ Just punch in the numbers, it's fun.
...so that's what happens when you don't edit the Subject: when you write a comment. /. uses the subject from your last post. Fascinating.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
That's 2,592 (or 36 * 72) cubic inches, but the edges may just as well be something like 0.1 m by 0.4 m by 0.9 m. Shouldn't every comet have one of those?
Nanotech civilization living on comet gets pissed, launches nanotech weapon the size of a marble to Earth, where it proceeds to turn the entire planet into grey goo.
Oh, wait, it already was grey goo...
Never mind.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
You live in Washington, D.C., right?
In a wealthy neighborhood full of politicians, right?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
NASA has trouble hitting Mars, and it's a planet. They're going to hit a comet? Anyone taking odds on this?
Come on, we're all geeks here, lets be geeky. It doesn't hit with the force of anything. When it impacts, it releases energy equivalent to x tons of explosive detonating.
you know a lot of losers. maybe you are a loser?
Since their "copper bullet is intended to strike the comet....with a force equivalent to 4.7 tons of TNT", I think the above sentence should have been:
Scientists hope to discover what exactly the comet was made of...
NXWYQc4, the galactic space agency for the Federated Gleepthiz Empire, is planning on piercing one of the rare blue planets with a 5-mile diameter ball of molten titanium shot through its core for scientific research purposes.
Having recently decoded four of the major languages used by that planet's inhabitants by careful analysis of its radio frequency emissions, additional entertainment value is expected to be had by listening in on the primitive's intraplanetary communications in the 7 Earth days prior to impact.
With NASA's luck, 1 of 2 things will happen:
1. It will hit the comet but they will have done the calculations wrong (because they forgot to convert centimeters to inches) and it will re-direct the comet on a collision course with the Earth.
2. They will hit the comet, but at the moment it hits and they are supposed to be observing it, they will see a hot girl changing in the house next to the observatory and aim thier telescopes there.
Alright mods, do your worst!
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
A lot of observing and imaging of comets and their dust comas, and analysis of the resulting images, is being carried out by Jana Pittichova, a postdoctoral fellow (and triathlete!) on Karen's research team, primarily using the University's 88-inch telescope atop Mauna Kea.
Being one of the operators on that telescope, I've worked with Jana on several nights - probably one-third to one-half of the Meech team's total observing this semester.
Although I understand how the observations are carried out from a purely operational and practical standpoint, I haven't seen what the actual analysis looks like... and even if I did, the odds are good that I'd need a lot of explaining, since I'm not a Ph.D. myself!
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
You think you're better than me? Oh, you're not better than me. You handle my ass pennies everyday. You pick up my ass pennies for good luck. You throw my ass pennies in fountains and make wishes on them. You give my ass pennies to your little daughter to buy gumballs with. And now, you're shooting comets in deep space with my ass pennies!
<It's a joke, laugh>
Let him whine. With hate-the-USA cocksuckers like that, I don't have to look far to find a spot to use modpoints.
A chunk of copper the size of a bathtub would weight far more than 820 pounds. I suspect it's a bathtub-sized probe, with an 820 pound chunk of copper on its front end.
Oh sure, blow it up, learn something and move on. Next thing we know some ancient alien civilization takes the absence of their god's comet as though they have wronged him, commited mass suicide in repentence, and when we show up 2000 years from now, we wonder what the hell happened to them that they up and all die like that....
Rivendahl
its just a giant penny for the most part. Getting it into space will cost a bit (dare i say a pretty penny). If anything goes wrong such as a small knock off course, then that tub is gonna miss. But if it hits, we can possibly see the cult members from that heavens gate mass cult suicide thing back in the 90's. wouldnt you be damned if they were really right and the passing comet did hide a ufo behind it?
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye
a 5-ton bomb might be enough to blow up a building, but if the comet is solid rock (or ice) I doubt it would make a big dent. OTOH - if, as some suspect, comets and asteroids are really just blobs of gravel the probe might pass through it without even changing the comet's path!
Clear, Dark Skies