First images of comet before crash

[Ripley]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- Not all dazzling fireworks displays will be on Earth this Independence Day.

NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks in a mission that will blast a stadium-sized hole in a comet.

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If all goes as planned, the Deep Impact spacecraft will release a wine barrel-sized probe on a suicide mission hurtling toward the comet Tempel 1 -- about 80 million miles (129 million kilometers) away from Earth at the time of impact.

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Scientists hope the July 4 collision will gouge a crater in the comet's surface large enough to reveal the pristine core and perhaps yield cosmic clues to the origin of the solar system.

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When they collide, the impact will be bright enough to see on Earth, using binoculars.

more...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/06/22/impact.space/index.html

[Kraklen]

1. They time these things for 4th of July, don't they?

There was the Mars landing on the 4th of July. Rendezvous with Eros on Valentine's Day, it must be conspiracy.

[daleo]

4. Maybe they get overtime. n/t

[Big Kahuna]

2. Comet debris rains down on Europe and Asia!

Moscow in flames! Missles headed for New York! Film at 11! :)

[Ian David]

3. I already know what they'll find inside

[Straight Shooter]

8. I see Babs Bush went to the beauty parlor. They forgot to do her nails.

Quite a striking resemblance.

[indepat]

5. Hope the comet's orbit is not put on course with earth's

[jobycom]

7. That was my thought, too. Why go blasting things we don't understand?

I guess that's the American way these days.

[powwowdancer]

9. not to worry

Laws of nature are universal. That means that they don't just apply here, they apply everywhere in the universe. That's what makes 'em so damned good. A scientist's job is to study these laws. (Except in Kansas). You might be able to break the speed limit, (in Kansas), but you ain't breakin' the speed of light, (anywhere!) The physics police are very unforgiving. Same goes for laws of motion, etc. These same scientists are the ones who are currently studying comets, and they are watching for the one with our name on it, (even though their funding was cut). The chances of a cock-up the likes of which you fear is... well, let's just say that there's an infinitely better chance that dubya will become an unitarian universalist secular humanist, announce his homosexuality, renounce his wealth, change his name to "peaceflower" confess his war crimes, and submit meekly and quietly to the world court for his just deserts. :sarcasm: Too bad about the budget cuts. I read somewhere that the budget for a "watching" program that could give us adequate time to "respond" would be about the same size as the operational budget for one Macdonald's restaurant. Money well spent, n'est ce pas? Too bad Ameristan is under the rule of Evangeliban. For more on the hard science behind comet crashes and so on, visit Phil Platt's enormously entertaining BAD ASTRONOMY page, cf., "Armageddon." Hope that puts your mind at ease. I sure have fun mixing astronomy and politics!

:dem:
powwowdancer out.

[MGKrebs]

10. Heehee! Good post!

But...
Just because the laws may be universal does not mean we understand them completely yet. I suppose I have a tiny bit of the anarchist in me, because I secretly yearn for new surprises. Like this maybe...

"short-range gravity, a subject which has suddenly attracted much theoretical and experimental interest owing to a relatively new model which supposes the existence of extra spatial dimensions in which gravity, but not other forces, might be operating...

and...

"One implication of the model, testable with tabletop experiments such as Adelberger's, is that the gravitational force might depart from Newton's inverse square law...

And here's the exciting part...

Another interesting implication of the model ... is that the unification of the four known forces would possibly occur at energies ... within reach of the Large Hadron Collider under construction at CERN. Extra dimensions could, for example, manifest themselves .. as an apparent disappearance of energy, implying that some of the collision energy had been converted into gravitons (the particle form of gravity) which then disappear into the extra dimensions. The gravitons produced in this way might come back into our conventional world of 3 spatial dimensions and decay into two photons.

http://www.aip.org/pnu/2000/split/pnu483-1.htm

Not that this has anything specifically to do with comets, but just to point out that there IS an unknown component to a lot of science.

It will be so boring once we have a Grand Unified Theory that works. We'll probably have the whole genome mapped out by then too. Scientists will become mechanics for corporations, just trying to find more efficient ways to exploit our knowledge for profit.
But wait! if there are more than 3+1 dimensions, we'll have a WHOLE BUNCH of new stuff to explore! That's cool.

[indepat]

12. Thanks for the heads-up on many issues and the subtle side humor

[whistle]

6. It is actually a secret military maneuver disquised as a NASA event

....due to four threatening comet events beginning next year, if you believe this kind of stuff:

<snip>
COMET IMPACT PREDICTIONS

By Dr. Barry Warmkessel
With Support From:
Lawrence P. Giver
Sonja M. Kawamoto
Dr. Herbert W. Kuehne
Remo Perini
©Copyright: 31 December 2000

The two other papers offered on this web site offer evidence of the causal agent of these events, our Sun's dark companion star. It generates two separate comet swarms (each orbiting the Sun about every 3,353 years) that orbit 180o out of phase. They alternately threaten Earth for about a hundred year period every 1500 to 1700 years. One of these swarms appears to have passed Earth about 1500 years ago, registering impacts around 440 AD and 534 AD. The impending threat is from several closely spaced comet clusters contained within the second of these swarms. The composite threat scenario indicates that a comet - Earth impact may first occur around 2006/7. An estimated one-kilometer diameter comet fragments into about a dozen major pieces along a 1,700 mile-long path from France to Israel. A second, and more deadly impact, may occur in the Southern Hemisphere less than a decade later. Impacts from fragments of a larger comet, or ones on a more vertical trajectory, may then occur. Both events catch most of humanity by surprise as our current habitat and political structure is swept away. Ultimately, they may cause the death of the bulk of mankind by relocation trauma, insurrection, thirst and starvation. Humanity may then be painfully returned to one of an Ice Age culture thereby greatly limiting the extent and capability of our civilization.

<snip>

The Bible Code initiates the definition of the impending dual comet strike's Baseline Scenario. Bible Code data has been found by computer searches of a time-rastered version of the letters in the Hebrew Pentateuch. Some results have been published in the Journal of Statistical Science, and so far these seem to be unchallenged. The Bible Code indicates that two strikes are to be anticipated, the second is more devastating than the first. See the related events in Table 1.


Table 1
Comet Impact Events From the Bible Code
Year Event Description From The Bible Code
2006: Comet Year predicted for world; Star-like object - Its path struck their dwelling.
2010: Comet Days of horror; - Darkness and gloom. L. A. earthquake.
2012: Comet It will be crumbled. Earth annihilated;
2014: Earthquake Desolated, empty, depopulated; For everyone, the great terror, fire.

<more>
<link> http://www.barry.warmkessel.com/barry/2000PPaper.html

[Karenina]

11. Y'all seem obsessed

wit blowing shit up. Not unlike your *dauphin and frogs...