NASA To Give Cosmic Fireworks on the 4th

[Tuckerfan]

Well, close to it, anyway.

In early July, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft will deploy a tiny impactor to smash into the nucleus of a small comet. The idea is to excavate a sizable crater and provide valuable insight into the true nature of comets.

For skywatchers here on Earth, it should also produce a large cloud of ejected material that should cause the comet to significantly brighten enough to become visible with binoculars and perhaps even with the unaided eye.

For some reason, I’m reminded of that Far Side cartoon of the moonmen watching a nuclear war on Earth and going, “Ooooooh!”

[Tuckerfan]

Of course, this guy thinks that it’ll destroy the comet and doom us all!

Thanks Noah … yes, I realize that it is HOPED that the whole comet will not be affected, but I am 99 per cent sure that there is no guarantee of this. Who could be that sure, when no-one even knows the interior morphology of the object. Suppose it were one giant crystalline structure ? What an irreversible mess the projectile would make in this situation.

Sorry, I am not convinced. I think it’s a rotten idea, and should be shelved at least until we have exhausted all NON-invasive techniques.

The very uncertainty of the crater size (“somewhere between a house and a football stadium”) indicates to me an indication that the experimenters have as much idea of what effect they’re going to have as a man with an ice-pick approaching an egg. My only question to the team behind this is … “Are you really sure you are behaving responsibly here ? Can’t you wait until we know more ? Until we can be a bit more clever and attempt a landing ?” I’m really personally outraged by this. There are those who think that even life on the Earth may have originated from micro-organisms on such a comet …