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BEIJING, June 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Fireworks are eagerly
expected when July 4 comes nearer, the day of NASA's Deep Impact is planned to
smack into the heart of a distant comet, Tempel 1.
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Early July 4, the
NASA spacecraft will attempt to smack into the heart of a distant comet,
Tempel 1. (Photo: Xinhua/AFP) |
The collision is expected to create a hole into the
surface of Tempel 1, about the size of a football field and 2-14 story building
deep.
NASA's fleet of space-based observatories -- including the
Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra telescopes -- along with an army of ground-based
telescopes around the world are to record the impact and resulting crater.
"This is a tremendously exciting, daring
first-of-its-kind mission," said Rick Grammier, the Deep Impact project manager
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"What makes it new and exciting also makes it extremely
difficult and challenging from a technical viewpoint," Grammier told a
pre-impact news briefing. "It's a bullet trying to hit a second bullet, with a
third bullet in the right place at the right time watching the first two
bullets."
The big question is: What kind of fireworks can sky-gazers
expect to see from Earth?
Scientists do not know yet. But if the probe hits the
bull's-eye, the impact could temporarily light up the comet as much as 40 times
brighter than normal, possibly making it visible to the naked eye in parts of
the Western Hemisphere.
Discovered in 1867, Tempel 1 is a short-period comet,
meaning that it moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit between Mars and
Jupiter and can be sighted every six or so years.
Scientists hope the 330 million-US dollar comet probe
mission could help them know better about the conditions in the early years of
the formation of the solar system.
Comets are inviting because their frozen cores
contain pristine samples of materials used in the formation of the universe.
Enditem
(Agencies)
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