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BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Comets are "carriers of basic chemical building blocks for allowing life to occur," Rick Gremmier, project manager for the NASA's Deep Impact mission, said on Wednesday.
 |
| At 1:52 a.m. EDT (0552 GMT) on Monday, the
771-pound (350 kg) copper-fortified impactor is expected to smash into
Tempel 1 at 23,000 miles an hour, a speed that would pare the flight from
New York to Los Angeles down to 6 minutes. (Photo:
NASA) |
"We want to find out what those materials were ... and put
a piece in the puzzle of how the solar system was formed." he said.
The mission is expected to create a hole into
the surface of Comet Tempel 1, about the size of a football field and 2-14 story
building deep.
It aims to uncover and photograph pristine material formed
billions of years ago during the creation of the universe.
Comets are composed of ice, gas and dust from the solar
system's farthest and coldest regions. They often show bursts of activity,
during which parts of their crusty surfaces lift off to create fan-shaped jets
of dust.
One theory, Gremmier said, is that comets first brought
water to Earth by crashing into its surface.
UK scientists predict that Deep Impact will verify their
theory that the outer crust of the comet will consist of asphalt-like material
with permafrost beneath. The small icy fragments blasted out by the impact will
include organic matter, they suggest.
"Not only is Deep Impact a spectacular experiment, it is
also a test for our long-standing arguments," said Professor Wickramasinghe
with Cardiff University. "It will show, we believe, that a comet is not a rubble
pile, nor a conglomerate of ices, but a porous mass of organics and ice under
the black asphalt crust."
At 1:52 a.m. EDT (0552 GMT) on July 4, the 771-pound (350
kg) copper-fortified impactor is expected to smash into Tempel 1 at 23,000 miles
an hour, a speed that would pare the flight from New York to Los Angeles down to
6 minutes. Enditem
(Agencies) [1] [2] [3] [4] | 
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