Deep impact strikes comet
15 Jun 2005 by Evoluted New Media
On 4th July UK astronomers and space scientists will be among researchers the world over watching as a NASA probe dramatically encounters the comet Tempel-1
On 4th July UK astronomers and space scientists will be among researchers the world over watching as a NASA probe dramatically encounters the comet Tempel-1
After a voyage of 173 days and 431 million kilometers (268 million miles), NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will deploy a 1-meter-wide impactor into the path of the comet. Scientists hope the first of its kind, hyper-speed impact between space-borne iceberg and probe, will shed light on the genesis of our Solar System.
"The last 24 hours of the impactor's life should provide the most spectacular data in the history of cometary science," said Deep Impact Principal Investigator Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park.
The parent spacecraft will observe the impact, ejected material and structure of the resulting crater from 500 kilometres. Further observations will then take place by other spacecraft and from telescopes on Earth.
Professor Jonathon Tennyson, head of the physics and astronomy department at UCL, told Laboratory News: “In many ways this is a classic physics experiment where you throw something at something else and see how its reacts.”
Professor Tennyson will be studying observations from the UKIRT (United Kingdom Infrared Telescope) in Hawaii. He explained: “Comets are essentially large dirty snowballs. When observing them from the Earth, water in the atmosphere effects our observations. The UKIRT site in Hawaii is useful as it is 4000M above sea level and very dry.”
