Comet mission set for deep impact

[Scott]

The US Deep Impact spacecraft is set to slam a washing machine-sized projectile into a comet, to reveal what's inside.

The main spacecraft will release its 372kg "impactor" into the path of Comet Tempel 1 on Sunday, for an expected collision on Monday morning.

By studying the comet's interior, scientists aim to learn more about the formation of our Solar System and the chemical building blocks of life.

Its mission will be short-lived but is certain to be spectacular.

Spacecraft instruments and ground-based telescopes will record the event, as a hole the size of a football stadium is blasted in the comet.

So it looks like they are gonna blow up a "rock" to see whats inside

link: BBC news

 

[kilps]

What ever happened to blowing up Iraq and co.?

 

[guest2013-1]

dude, i'm not sitting right with this, what if comets can cause black holes and all strange **** happens

/me gets his tin foil hat and ball protector

 

[bb_matt]

dude, i'm not sitting right with this, what if comets can cause black holes and all strange **** happens

/me gets his tin foil hat and ball protector

/me throws a huge snowball at noone's head ...

black holes ! - pah ! - I speet on zis blick hoal of yairs ! (french accent)

Unseriously though, I'm a bit worried about that strange **** happening.
If there's one thing in life that guarantees me sleepless nights, it's strange **** !

Forget the black holes and worry about that **** !

 

[nocilah]

NASA UNLEASHES BLACK HOLE...
noone forwarned such an event happening.

 

[Clipse]

I guess, "War of the worlds" is being released for a reason. Screw Tom Cruise, the main actors = you and me.

 

[Kei]

The whole purpose of this is to gain a deeper understanding of comets, so that in the future if an asteroid is on it's way to hit us, we can try and do something about it.

I must say, the device they sent crashing into the comet and it's mother craft are pretty nifty pieces of hardware! Both of them are PowerPC based and run on VxWorks I believe.

 

[antowan]

It was so cool to see it live around 7 this morning. I love projects like these! Was disappointed that Discovery didn't carry it live... CNN/Sky and BBC did...

 

[Scott]

oh...i was alseep