Close encounter with a comet set for Independence Day

[emad]

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
09 June 2005


Scientists are preparing to shoot a comet with a self-guided copper missile travelling at 100 times the speed of a bullet.

The explosive encounter is set for 4 July - Independence Day in America- and it will be observed by astronomers around the world who hope it will shed light on the origin of the planets.

By firing a relatively large object into the icy interior of a comet, scientists hope to dig out and analyse the primordial material that was around when the solar system formed more than four billion years ago.

It has taken six months for the £140m Deep Impact probe to travel the 268 million miles from Earth to comet Tempel 1. It will take a further 24 hours for its missile to make the final trip from mother craft to the impact site. Comet Tempel 1 is nearly nine miles long and 2.5 miles wide and scientists insistits course around the Sun will remain unaltered in the collision with the half-ton bullet.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=645333

[aeolian]

1. Well,

it is a TERROR COMET that could potentially, maybe, someday smash into earth, causing mass destruction. So we must take preemptive action NOW to destroy this comet before it destroys us! You're with us, or you're with the comets!


:)

Actually, this is pretty cool. It'll be interesting to see what's inside those things.

[Igel]

2. I hope nobody "back home" so much as stubs

their toe.

No new wars. No tropical storms, floods, hail, tornados, tsunamis, porpoise groundings, or surge tides.

No oddly shaped crowds, building collapses, earthquakes, oddly shaped pretzels in the shape of Jesus and the V. Mary, or sudden frog die-offs. Certainly no exploding frogs.

But, just in case, everybody should go out and stock up on tinfoil for their BBQs now. It might be in short supply on July 5.