quote:

---

(MSNBC) You don’t have to be a scientist to grab a front row seat when the NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft bears down on a comet between July 3 and 4.

Live webcasts of the event will be provided by NASA and several observatories, large and small, to offer skywatchers a digital view to the cometary collision.

NASA’s Deep Impact mission is slated to crash an 820-pound (371-kilogram) Impactor probe into Comet Tempel 1 and record the event via a Flyby mothership, orbital observatories like the Hubble and Spitzer space telescope, and a myriad of ground-based telescopes from around the world. The impact is expected to take place at 1:52 a.m. EDT (0552 GMT) on July 4.

---

quote:

---

A space probe hit its comet target late Sunday in a NASA-directed, Hollywood-style mission that scientists hope will reveal clues to how the solar system formed. It was the first time a spacecraft had ever touched the surface of a comet, igniting brief Independence Day weekend fireworks in space.

The successful strike 83 million miles away from Earth occurred at 10:52 p.m. PDT, according to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Scientists on the mission — called Deep Impact, like the movie — erupted in applause and exchanged hugs.

"A lot of people said we couldn't do this or wouldn't be able to pull it off," project manager Rick Grammier said later at a predawn Monday news conference. "It happened like clockwork and I think that's something to be proud of on America's birthday."

The cosmic smash-up did not significantly alter the comet's orbit around the sun and NASA said the experiment doesn't pose any danger to Earth.

An image by the mothership, which had released the barrel-sized "impactor" probe on its suicide mission 24 hours earlier, showed a bright spot in the lower section of the comet where the collision occurred. A cloud of debris was hurled into space. When the dust settles, scientists hope to peek inside the comet's frozen core — a composite of ice and rock left over from the early solar system.

"We hit it just exactly where we wanted to," co-investigator Don Yeomans said.

---

[ 04 July 2005: Message edited by: Albireo ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by April:
I hope there were no lifeforms on that comet...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by April:
I hope there were no lifeforms on that comet...

---

[ 04 July 2005: Message edited by: Albireo ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by April:
Anyways, I still think it is a bad idea to fire missiles in space at foreign bodies.

---

quote:

---

NASA's mission that sent a space probe smashing into a comet raised more than cosmic dust — it also brought a lawsuit from a Russian astrologer.

Marina Bai has sued the U.S. space agency, claiming the Deep Impact probe that punched a crater into the comet Tempel 1 late Sunday "ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe," the newspaper Izvestia reported Tuesday. A Moscow court has postponed hearings on the case until late July, the paper said.

[...]

Bai is seeking damages totaling $300 million — the approximate equivalent of the mission's cost — for her "moral sufferings," Izvestia said, citing her lawyer Alexander Molokhov. She earlier told the paper that the experiment would "deform her horoscope."

NASA representatives in Russia could not be reached for comment on the case.

---