A Smashing Success

Deep Impact Kicks Off Fourth of July With Deep Space Fireworks.

The image to the left shows comet Tempel 1 sixty seconds before it ran over NASA's Deep Impact probe at 10:52 p.m. Pacific time, July 3 (1:52 a.m. Eastern time, July 4). The picture was taken by the probe's impactor targeting sensor.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

Deep Impact successfully smashed into comet Tempel 1 at 1:52 a.m. EDT.

"What a way to kick off America's Independence Day," said Deep Impact Project Manager Rick Grammier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"This mission is truly a smashing success," said Andy Dantzler, director of NASA's Solar System Division. "Tomorrow and in the days ahead we will know a lot more about the origins of our solar system."

The larger image shows the initial ejecta that resulted when NASA's Deep Impact probe collided with comet Tempel 1. It was taken by the spacecraft's high-resolution camera 13 seconds after impact. The image has been digitally processed to better show the comet's nucleus.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

According to NASA at the moment the impactor was vaporizing itself in its collision with comet Tempel 1, the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft was monitoring events from nearby. For the following14 minutes the flyby collected and downlinked data as the comet loomed ever closer. Then, as expected at 2:05 a.m. EDT, the flyby stopped collecting data and entered a defensive posture called shield mode where its dust shields protect the spacecraft's vital components during its closest passage through the comet's inner coma. Shield mode ended at 2:32 a.m. EDT when mission control re-established the link with the flyby spacecraft.

Simply Amazing! And California Yankee participated.

Comments

[California Yankee]

Nanci,

Last December Sgt Hook posted he was closing down his blog:

Because my writings here at Sgt Hook have now become a distraction to those fine soldiers, I will be closing down this blog. I owe it to them.

I’d like to thank all of those who read this drivel and have supported the soldiers as they fight for your freedom. I hope that I’ve been able to put the soldier in a new light for many. They’re good people and as I am, you too can be very proud of them all.

Sgt Hook out.

We all miss his posts.

[Nanci]

Please, what happened to Sgt. Hook's BLOG??????????????