First Results From Deep Impact Mission

jdoire wrote to mention a Physicsweb piece revealing some of the first bits of data from the Deep Impact mission. From the article: "Based on data from the flyby spacecraft and the impactor, Michael O'Hearn of the University of Maryland and colleagues say that Tempel 1 belongs to the Jupiter family of comets, although its overall shape and surface features are quite different from the nuclei of the two other comets that have been studied in detail -- Wild 2 and Borelly. They also report that Tempel 1 consists largely of extremely fine particles that seem to be very loosely bound together: in other words, the comet is more like a pile of powder than a solid rock." Looks like the Electric Universe folks were a bit off.

Comments

Re:First results back from comet

[twifosp]

We found out fast things hitting big things make big collisions. This is great science.

We make dumb posts that over-simplify and generalize events. This is great commentary.

If you don't have anything worthwhile to post, don't post at all. I know you're just a silly troll, but a lot science has been at the hest of speeding things up and mashing them together to create collisions. Ever heard of a particle accelerator?

Re:Mining

[Rorschach1]

We can visit and study mountains, too. Moving them is another matter.

Besides, it's asteroids you want to mine for minerals, not comets.

Unlikely they thought the moon was powder

[John_Sauter]

They thought to moon could be a big ball of loose powder, too.

Neil Armstrong says he didn't know if they were going to land on the surface, or sink into it never to be seen again.

Hard to believe that Neil Armstrong was not familiar with Lunar Surveyor. See http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/surveyo r.html.
        John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)

Re:Formation of a City-Sized Crater?

[Blitzenn]

"Exactly what was in that impactor that could create a city-sized crater?"

It is exactly the inordinate size of the crater that has caused them to beleive that the surface is like a 'pile of powder'. It wasn't that the impactor was so large or going so fast relative to the target, it was that the surface material reacted so violently in relation to the physical impact. That denotes that the surface material has little to no cohesive nature. What really makes that curious is why would it possibly stay together to begin with then? It is a relatively small body and should exhibit a very very small gravitation influence. Why would such material form a body that at least gives the illusion of cohesion in the abcense of the physics that we believe it takes create such a body?

Re:Can someone help me?

[Ransak]

Aside from the obvious help something like this could be for helping turn away a Near Earth Object (check out this site for more info on NEOs), large portions of the technology used to develop these missions furthers other closer to home technologies. A few off the top of my head:

Robotic missions furthers robotic tech for other industries. Bomb disposal anyone?

Material science is furthered with every new probe, providing insights into stronger materials for planes/trains/automobiles back here at home. If you've bought a car in the last 25 years, you have benefited from the space program.

New communication tech directly carries over to private industry. Without previous missions, there would be no DirectTV.

In flight tech adjusted the Deep Impactor twice before colliding with the comet. That tech could easily be the precursor to an intelligent AI to land planes.

These are just a few things off the top of my head. The great thing about programs like this is the untold tech that will be developed from this that we can't even guess at right now, and perhaps not for many years.