Author |
Topic: Deep Impact Mission (Read 1640 times) |
|
otter
Junior Member
Gender: 
Posts: 142
|
 |
Deep Impact Mission
« on: May 17th, 2005, 12:17pm » |
 Quote  Modify
|
OK, Puzzlers. Here's a real chance to put your thinking caps on.
From NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website:
What happens when you crash into a comet? That was a question considered by astronomers when they designed the Deep Impact mission, launched in January. This coming July 4, the Deep Impact spaceship will reach its target - Comet Tempel 1 -- and release an impactor over five times the mass of a person toward its surface. The mothership will photograph the result. The remaining crater may tell how Tempel 1 is constructed. If, for example, Comet Tempel 1 is an extremely loose pile of debris, the impactor may leave little or no discernable crater. On the other hand, if the comet's surface is relatively firm, the impactor's ripple may leave quite a large crater. A contest is even being held to predict the size of the resulting crater.
What scientists do know about the impact and the comet:
The Deep Impact impactor weighs 370 kilograms (816 pounds).
The impactor will hit Tempel 1 with a velocity of 10.2 kilometers per second (22,800 miles per hour).
The surface gravity on Tempel 1 is incredibly low, between 0.027 and 0.04 cm/s2 0.0000275 to 0.000041 times Earth's gravity).
The density of Tempel 1 is probably between 100 and 900 kilograms per cubic meter (between 1/10 and 9/10 the density of water on Earth). The uncertainty in this number is one reason for the uncertainty about the final crater size.
Additional Tempel 1 Facts
Obviously, the density of Tempel 1 will be the largest determining factor, but it should be fun to speculate. So what do you think? Crater or no crater? What size crater? Some conjecture on this site should be enlightening.
|
|
 IP Logged |
We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
|
|
|
Speaker
Uberpuzzler
Gender:
Posts: 1118
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #1 on: May 19th, 2005, 10:32pm » |
Quote Modify
|
Well, without much research, other than science fiction novels. And, because I have waited patiently for two days for someone with a more hard science approach to answering to answer, but they haven't. Here is my go.
The impactor will travel straight throught Temple 1. The comet is very brittle. It is made of mostly ice and other crystalline materials.
2. The impactor is quite small, so it will act like a bullet punching through a piece of paper.
3. The hole will probaly remain open, but be concealed by gas and other materials that are released.
4. The impactor will be damaged beyond recovery, and will become a part of the corona of the comet.
That is my guess, based mostly on trying to guess something that no one else would guess. 
|
|
IP Logged |
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. <Ben Franklin>
|
|
|
Grimbal
wu::riddles Moderator
Uberpuzzler
Gender:
Posts: 7528
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #2 on: May 20th, 2005, 7:39am » |
Quote Modify
|
Reminds me of the guesses when Shoemaker-Levy impacted Jupiter.
Before the impact I heard (and that was my feeling) that it would probably just disappear in the clouds. In fact it resulted in a huge fireball.
For Deep Impact I would say it will be like throwing a stone at a snowman. A deep hole, now very wide.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
TenaliRaman
Uberpuzzler
I am no special. I am only passionately curious.
Gender:
Posts: 1001
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #3 on: May 23rd, 2005, 3:54am » |
Quote Modify
|
I can see why grimbal is making an analogy with the snowman but i feel that the surface would be hard like ice and the layers beneath should be like snow. Now if one imagines a snowman whose surface is a bit hard then my belief is that the crater wont be wide but it would be deeper. Also the surface can have lot of cracks.
-- AI
|
|
IP Logged |
Self discovery comes when a man measures himself against an obstacle - Antoine de Saint Exupery
|
|
|
Grimbal
wu::riddles Moderator
Uberpuzzler
Gender:
Posts: 7528
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #4 on: May 23rd, 2005, 5:39am » |
Quote Modify
|
I don't think there is a sheet of ice on the surface because that would mean the water was liquid, but in empty space ice evaporates without going thru the liquid phase.
And yes, I've always heard comets are made of something like dirty snow. Given the low gravity, I don't think it should be very dense.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
TenaliRaman
Uberpuzzler
I am no special. I am only passionately curious.
Gender:
Posts: 1001
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #5 on: May 27th, 2005, 10:12am » |
Quote Modify
|
Hmm yes surface gravity is too low, but i wonder how much density would account for such a low gravity? If a slight change in density would account for high change in surface gravity, then yes i think that accounts for low density snow like structure. However i wonder if thats true.
For some reasons, i am not able to imagine a soft snowball floating in space without disintegrating. Thats probably why i keep thinking of it being dense.
Thinking....... (with a tin foil hat)
-- AI
|
|
IP Logged |
Self discovery comes when a man measures himself against an obstacle - Antoine de Saint Exupery
|
|
|
Barukh
Uberpuzzler
Gender:
Posts: 2276
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #6 on: Jul 5th, 2005, 4:22am » |
Quote Modify
|
Did you notice that it's already done? 
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
Grimbal
wu::riddles Moderator
Uberpuzzler
Gender:
Posts: 7528
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #7 on: Jul 5th, 2005, 3:50pm » |
Quote Modify
|
Yep, and they said the crater was larger than expected.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
SWF
Uberpuzzler
Posts: 879
|
|
Re: Deep Impact Mission
« Reply #8 on: Jul 5th, 2005, 6:16pm » |
Quote Modify
|
Early conclusions of the Deep Impact experiment:
1) The following items are all the same size (3 ft by 3 ft):
oil drum, coffee-table, dishwasher, refrigerator, barrel, wine cask, large garbage can, desk, card table, wine barrel, washing machine, and the impactor
2) Boeing 747's and 767's are the same size.
References (excerpts collected from internet):
The projectile, the size of an oil drum, was fired at 0607 GMT Sunday by the US spacecraft that had undertaken a 172-day, 431-million-kilometer journey to get close to the comet.
The collision between the coffee-table-sized impactor and the city-sized comet occurred at 1:52 a.m. Eastern time Monday.
The size of the crater to be created by the dishwasher- size impactor is estimated to be somewhere between a large house and a football field.
Astronomers will be watching to analyze what happens when NASA sends a refrigerator-sized copper bullet into a comet tonight 83 million miles from Earth.
About 12 hours after the barrel-size Deep Impact space probe smashed into a comet half the size of Manhattan, scientists showed off dramatic, sci-fi-like images.
Deep Impact will deploy the wine cask sized impactor 22 hours before the impact and, using small thruster jets, steer it into the path of the mountain sized comet.
Deep Impact consists of two spacecraft, a flyby spacecraft that is about the size of a sub-compact car and an "impactor" the size of a large (3 ft. x 3 ft.) garbage can.
The impactor is about 3 X 3 feet, about the size of a desk and weighs 370 Kg (820 lbs).
About the size of a card table, the impactor will smash itself into the sunlit side of Tempel 1 at roughly 23,000 miles an hour, creating a blast equal to nearly 5 tons of exploding TNT.
If all goes as planned a spacecraft, Deep Impact, will release a probe the size of a wine barrel that will hurtle toward the comet Tempel 1,
Deep Impact consists of a subcompact-car-sized flyby spacecraft and an impactor, about the size of a washing machine.
If Tempel 1 were a Boeing 747, the impactor would be the size of a mosquito.
And the speed and size of the comet compared to the impactor is like a Boeing 767 slamming into a mosquito.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
|
RIDDLES SITE
WRITE MATH!
Home 
Help 
Search 
Members 
Login 
Register
Reply
Notify of replies
Send Topic
Print