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For the First Time a Spacecraft Impacts With Comet
NY Times ^
| July 4, 2005
| WARREN E. LEARY
Posted on 07/04/2005 11:03:46 AM PDT by neverdem
click here to read article
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To: ItsForTheChildren
looks like someone had a campfire, just before the impact...(wood on Mars, actually...)
21
posted on
07/04/2005 2:30:57 PM PDT
by
bitt
('We will all soon reap what the ignorant are now sowing.' Victor Davis Hanson)
To: Iscool
how do they know it's there Good question. Either the spaceship or the target. Consider this your assignment: bone up on celestial navigation and report back.
22
posted on
07/04/2005 2:59:13 PM PDT
by
RightWhale
(withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
To: neverdem
From the Islamic world: "What's a comet?"
23
posted on
07/04/2005 3:02:19 PM PDT
by
StormEye
To: Iscool
a mere thousand or two miles per hour Numbers are important to engineers.
24
posted on
07/04/2005 3:07:21 PM PDT
by
RightWhale
(withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
To: hosepipe
I just saw a guy from NASA on the news. He said they would take a month going over the data. They will be downloading data from the fly-by craft for next 10 days. They are comparing it to data collected from observatories on earth and in space, e.g. Hubble, Chandra, etc.
25
posted on
07/04/2005 4:23:36 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
To: neverdem
26
posted on
07/04/2005 6:23:55 PM PDT
by
hosepipe
(This propaganda has been ok'ed me to include some fully orbed hyperbole....)
To: neverdem
Pretty cool fete of engineering. Somewhere ... in an old desk or attic, a slide-rule is smiling.
27
posted on
07/05/2005 4:17:12 AM PDT
by
Condor51
(Leftists are moral and intellectual parasites - Standing Wolf)
To: Iscool
And how do they know it's there...What radar screen tracks this thing??? They see it with telescopes and determine it's orbit from multiple measurements over time. Once you know the orbit, you know where it will be for quite some time in the future, and where it's been for quite some time in the past. That's actually less true with comets than say for asteroids or planets because comets "outgas" which can effect their orbits slightly.
28
posted on
07/05/2005 3:24:10 PM PDT
by
El Gato
To: neverdem
We should make more and target chinese and russian cities and paris and mecca/medina with them.
29
posted on
07/05/2005 10:28:06 PM PDT
by
Paul_Denton
(Get the U.N. out of the U.S. and U.S. out of the U.N.!)
To: Army Air Corps
Next trip they need to thread a rope through the hole. We'd be the only nation with a
PICKLE ON A ROPE! That was just toooooooo cool!!!! Such excitement in the anticipation!! And SUCCESS is a WONDERFUL thing!
30
posted on
07/05/2005 10:31:43 PM PDT
by
bannie
(The government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.)
To: El Gato
What do you mean "outgas"? Are they losing mass significantly?
31
posted on
07/05/2005 10:36:10 PM PDT
by
neverdem
(May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
To: lilylangtree
Yeah, just read that a woman's going to sue because NASA screwed up her astrological calendar. Hahahaha! It would have been amusing to have a judge put a restraining order against NASA...just long enough to have the guys at NASA spin their gears.
32
posted on
07/06/2005 6:02:54 PM PDT
by
lepton
("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
To: neverdem
"For the First Time a Spacecraft Impacts With Comet"
So you're telling me Bruce Willis' mission DIDN'T count?
33
posted on
07/06/2005 6:05:15 PM PDT
by
righttackle44
(The most dangerous weapon in the world is a Marine with his rifle and the American people behind him)
To: neverdem
Do you think all those scientists are working today? Happy 4th of July! If this was my project, I sure would be - especially if I had the day off and could avoid all the meetings.
34
posted on
07/06/2005 6:05:29 PM PDT
by
lepton
("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
To: neverdem
What do you mean "outgas"? Are they losing mass significantly? Outgassing occurs when a body with components sufficiently volitile as to vaporize when subjected to a heat source (like the sun), has parts of its form vaporize. This can even form actual jets of vapor, if the volitile components have less volitile materials around them.
Typically comets with elliptical orbits will outgas as the come closer to the sun (predominently from the side facing the sun at the time), and the components ejected will either drift off (forming debris trails), or will recondense or recollect on the comets surface when it heads out away from the sun.
The total mass ejected need not be much to move the comets orbit by as little as the diameter of the comet, and can easily alter it by a few miles out of a several-hundred million mile orbital path.
35
posted on
07/06/2005 6:15:27 PM PDT
by
lepton
("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
To: neverdem
So far there is a report of how the servers got 5x the traffic NASA expected so they brought a second bank of servers on line, but there is nothing in the category of scientific results.
36
posted on
07/06/2005 6:17:34 PM PDT
by
RightWhale
(withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
To: hosepipe
It will be a week. They are still downloading data.
37
posted on
07/06/2005 6:18:30 PM PDT
by
RightWhale
(withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty)
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