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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Deep Impact spacecraft's probe collides with comet

11:16 p.m. July 3, 2005



Associated Press
People gather to watch, on a large screen, the comet Tempel 1 collide with a NASA space probe in Honolulu, Sunday, July 3, 2005. The probe was bearing down on its comet target Sunday in a suicide mission scientists hoped would provide new insight into the origins of the solar system.
PASADENA – A space probe hit its comet target late Sunday in a NASA-directed, Hollywood-style mission that scientists hope will reveal clues to how the solar system formed.
It marked the first time a spacecraft touched the surface of a comet, igniting a dazzling Independence Day weekend fireworks display in space.

The successful strike 83 million miles away from Earth occurred just before 11 p.m. PDT, according to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which is managing the $333 million mission.
Scientists at mission control erupted in applause and gave each other hugs as news of the impact spread.

An image by the mothership showed a bright spot in the lower section of the comet where the collision occured that hurled a cloud of debris into space. When the dust settles, scientists hope to peek inside the comet's frozen core – a composite of ice and rock left over from the early solar system.

"We hit it just exactly where we wanted to," said co-investigator Don Yeomans.

Scientists had compared the suicide journey to standing in the middle of the road and being hit by a semi-truck roaring at 23,000 mph. They expect the crater will be anywhere from the size of a large house to a football stadium and between two and 14 stories deep.

A day earlier, the Deep Impact spacecraft successfully released its barrel-sized "impactor" probe on a high-speed collision course with Tempel 1 – a pickle-shaped comet half the size of Manhattan.

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Very good NASA...direct hit and I anticipate the images! Very cool!... ;D

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Temple 1 Whacked!

Scientists shot a washing machine-sized projectile into a comet, eight times faster than a rifle bullet. The impact created an enormous blast visible on images sent back to Earth, and whose size surprised even some mission scientists.

A diagram of the Deep Impact spacecraft, and below it, the projectile. (NASA)

NASA researchers confirmed the impact at 12:58 a.m. Central U.S. time, in a project designed to better understand what comets are made of.

A sequence of images sent back by cameras on the projectile revealed growing amounts of detail on the rocky-looking comet as a huge crater came to view. Later, images showed a bright blast showering off the speeding, potato-shaped object.

Now, the task of analyzing the images and other data from the mission begins.

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Excellent first image of the impact...made me smile!...

[Al Degutis]

I like this movie of the impactor's approach to the comet:
www.nasa.gov/mov/121493main_Impactor%20POV%20to%20crash.mov

I wasn't planning to stay up and watch it live but ended up awake at midnight so I figured, why not, it's less than an hour away. Nasa's got a decent record with two major success this year: Deep Impact and Cassini/Huygens.

[stargazer]

Time of Impact occured at 5:52.57.44 UTC. NASA and the other scopes got some real good photos of the impact and the ejecta. A slight brightness was noticed but as to what extend it is not known as of this morning. Some ground based scopes reported not much difference. We should know more today. Im off to a party with a friend from NASA so hopefully I will learn more.If I do I will let you all know.

Happy July 4th to all

B

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

First Images Gallery

The first shaky images are coming in...and they are cool...

Here is a sequence just before and an hour after impact.
The Faulkes Telescope North in Great Britan is observing the impact and recording images. Images below show impact and the flare growing as material is thrown out from the comet. The plume appears to be brightening the nucleus by a factor of approximately ten.

Here from the ESA shows the sequence.
This sequence of images below shows the comet before and after the impact. The image at left shows the comet 10 minutes before the impact. In the middle image, captured 15 minutes after the collision.The Hubble telescope continued to monitor the comet, snapping the image on the right 62 minutes after the encounter. www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0509.html

From Rosetta

ESA:-
www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/index.html

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From MSNBC:

Deep Impact’s fireworks continue longer than expected

A space probe's direct hit on a comet millions of miles from Earth drew oohs and ahs on Monday from astronomers, who said the celestial fireworks show could continue for weeks.

Hours after the Deep Impact mission’s refrigerator-sized Impactor probe collided with Comet Tempel 1, the Flyby mothership still spotted plumes of gas and dust flying out from the impact crater.

Visit the site for a slideshow and video: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8464385/

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From NASA looking back..

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From the movie shot I thought the trajectory was a bit low and almost a miss, but it was a good hit and let's see the data flood in. Glad to see the major media reporting on this.

I'll never take kenetic energy for granted again!

[Maddad]

The ejecta is a narrow plume instead of a cone, and the crater is on the large side of the estimates. This means that the surface of the comet, as deep as the impactor traveled, is porous, fluffy.

[starbux]

"Dirty Snowball" after all?

[Maddad]

Guess so. Big dirty snowball.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

More pics coming in

From Earth bound scopes, it didn't seem like much, but at the hand of man, he altered the skies!

From the mothership looking back.

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It lit up brighter than anyone expected, both in the initial impact and after debris. In the dirty snowball definition, I would rather say it's a crusty covered snowball.

Quite cool.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Swift's Take on Deep Impact

(Jul 6, 2005) Scientists monitoring NASA's Swift satellite had a good view of Deep Impact's collision with Comet Tempel 1. Although the space-based observatory was designed to watch for gamma ray bursts, its instruments were handy for this observation since it can see in several wavelengths at the same time. One of its most important observations from the impact is a quick rise in ultraviolet light.

This means that the impactor struck a hard surface, as opposed to something soft and snowy. So far, after a set of eight observations each lasting about 50 minutes, Swift scientists have seen a quick and dramatic rise in ultraviolet light, evidence that the Deep Impact probe struck a hard surface, as opposed to a softer, snowy surface.

More Here: www.universetoday.com/am/publish/swift_take_deep_impact.html?672005

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The snow ball theory of the 1950's on very shaky ground.

[Maddad]

Maybe it's layers that incluede both