posted July 04, 2005 02:02 AM               

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Deep Impact Kicks Off Fourth of July With Deep Space Fireworks

After 172 days and 268 million miles of deep space stalking, Deep Impact successfully reached out and touched comet Tempel 1. The collision between the coffee table-sized impactor and city-sized comet occurred at 1:52 am EDT.

"What a way to kick off America's Independence Day," said Deep Impact project manager Rick Grammier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The challenges of this mission and teamwork that went into making it a success, should make all of us very proud."

"This mission is truly a smashing success," said Andy Dantzler, director of NASA's Solar System Division. "Tomorrow and in the days ahead we will know a lot more about the origins of our solar system."

Official word of the impact came 5 minutes after impact when, at 1:57 am EDT, an image from the spacecraft's medium resolution camera was downlinked to the computer screens of the mission's science team showed the tell-tale signs of a high-speed impact.

"The image clearly shows a spectacular impact," said Deep Impact principal investigator Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park. "With this much data we have a long night ahead of us, but that is what we were hoping for. There is so much here it is difficult to know where to begin."

The celestial collision and ensuing data collection by the nearby Deep Impact mothership was the climax of a very active 24 hour period for the mission which began with impactor release at 2:07 am EDT on July 3. Deep space maneuvers by the flyby, final checkout of both spacecraft and comet imaging took up most of the next 22 hours. Then, the impactor got down to its last two hours of life.

"The impactor kicked into its autonomous navigation mode right on time," said Deep Impact navigator Shyam Bhaskaran, of JPL. "Our preliminary analysis indicates the three impactor targeting maneuvers occurred on time at 90, 35 and 12.5 minutes before impact."

At the moment the impactor was vaporizing itself in its 6.3 miles a second collision with comet Tempel 1, the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft was monitoring events from nearby and will continue to do so for the next several days.

"The flyby surviving closest approach and shield mode has put the cap on an outstanding day," said Grammier. "Soon, we will begin the process of downlinking all the encounter information in one batch and hand it to the science team."

Deep Impact will provide a glimpse beneath the surface of a comet, where material from the solar system's formation remains relatively unchanged. Mission scientists expect the project will answer basic questions about the formation of the solar system, by offering a better look at the nature and composition of the frozen celestial travelers known as comets.

The University of Maryland is responsible for overall Deep Impact mission science, and project management is handled by JPL. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.

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posted July 04, 2005 02:49 AM               

Keck Observatory had three big screens setup at their Waimea office with several comet experts doing comentary. One screen had a live feed of what Keck was seeing and analizing(with their spectrometer). Of course NASA had the best pictures but it was a treat to see what the biggest landbased telescope was viewing and how they analize the data.

The lead astronomer pointed out that they quickly detected large amounts of hydrogen/methane, water, and a few other componds. But it will take weeks, months and years to analize, accurately, all the data that was pouring in. Oh yeah, and they detected about 800 pounds of copper from the probe(just kidding). Actually, copper was used in the making of the probe so it would not interfere with the compounds blasted from the comet.

Wow! what a show, and what a great time to be alive to see all this great space exploration and science!!

posted July 04, 2005 08:03 AM            

BBC regional telephoned me earlier today and have said they will do a live interview about Comet Temple with me later tonight.

posted July 04, 2005 08:18 AM            

We should tap into this success for space collecting.

posted July 05, 2005 02:53 PM               

It was very diffuse and although I was observing from a dark sky location there was a lot of haze. With increased magnification a tiny stellar nuclear condensation was visible.

posted July 05, 2005 06:17 PM               

1. An observatory reporting the comet's brightness increasing by FIVE TIMES for about a half hour after impact, than back to two times.
   
2. The team expects to process an image of the CRATER that was left soon, with one member speculating that it will definitely be far greater than the size of a house. The new pictures from this press conference have incredible detail all the way to impact.
   
3. Big differences in spectra through the event show there are definitely different layers inside the comet which can now be studied.
   
4. Two identifiable explosion segments occurred with an "umbrella" cloud forming near the first explosion. A "column" of plume formed after the 2nd, with this plume casting a somewhat straight, clearly visible shadow across the comet.
   
5. The new high resolution images & geographic knowledge gained can reveal what points on the comet that it's "tails" are fountaining out from, so to speak, and the chemistry of comet tails & origin points can now be studied.
   
6. The new post-flyby backside pics now also show the bright impact plume.