Deep Impact

[Candy]

I sat at home alone watching it on NASA TV. My friends don't get into Astronomy. Yet, when they see something on the News, they think of me and have the need to discuss. No one's mention Deep Impact.

On the morning News, they only mentioned the Russian Astrologist suing NASA. The anchor's sure chuckled about that story. "And NASA has had no comment."

[twinstead]

The movies of impact and the resulting flash are amazing.

Obviously from perusing GLP the fact that the universe didn't end in a flash of white hot devil gas when the impactor hit did not slow down the woo woos. Now it appears that there is a huge cloud of 'poisonous gas' that is growing and heading right for Earth, and NASA is withholding pictures to cover up their opening of Pandora's Box.

Sigh.

[Lance]

white hot devil gas

Mmmmm... Jalapeños...

[twinstead]

white hot devil gas

Mmmmm... Jalapeños...

LOL sounds more like my weekly Habanero binge though.

[Mr. Manly]

They are bouncing off the walls at GLP because of a lack of new pictures. You should hear them. Oh, it's a cover up I tell you. Nasa done fucked up now. They can't find the comet. The comet is still getting brighter (how can you tell if you can't find it). The poison gas cloud is going to intersect our orbit. Nasa turned the comet into Wormwood and it's going to crash into earth and squish and poison us to death.
It's a blast.

[Mr. Manly]

Oh and somebody already talked to their anonymous Nasa scientist buddy in Houston and even though he was told to keep quiet he said
Nasa is redirecting resources like crazy since the impact.
That can only mean doom is right around the corner!

[twinstead]

Oh and somebody already talked to their anonymous Nasa scientist buddy in Houston and even though he was told to keep quiet he said
Nasa is redirecting resources like crazy since the impact.
That can only mean doom is right around the corner!

Those NASA bastards! Why, oh WHY must they pollute the universe with their blunt instruments of collisional death? WHY??

[twinstead]

Oh, by the way Herr Manley, love the jackboots! :wink:

[Mr. Manly]

Danke DFH.

[Lance]

Sheesh!

Finally - an authoritative voice from Response from NASA

-----------------------------

Breaking: NASA claims comet "Alive" and erratically off course - not sure what to do next!

This just in from APe:

After several days of silence, NASA head, Dr. Robert Zubkin, finally broke the ice with this stunning proclamation: "We have done something terrible I fear. This comet was ALIVE! -- I mean to say it was a living organism of some sort, and we almost killed the thing! Now it is hissing and spraying and veering of its normal course, and if it gets wind of where the bullet came from, we fear if may head right to earth! At this point we are leaving it in the hands of the military." When questioned further, Zubkin said, "We have no further comment at this time."

This, coming from the top, is a jaw-dropping revelation and is sure to reverberate around the globe spreading panic and fear. What have we done!

www.APe/agoodwoowoothread/mmmkay.com

And here is the rest of the thread.

Idiots.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I can't help but think that the post you quoted, Lance, was intended to be a satire of the typical woo-woo belief...

APe = a variation on Associate Press (AP).

A search for Robert Zubkin turns up nothing, but a Robert Zubrin does exist.

The URL should be a dead give-away...

[The Messenger]

I sat at home alone watching it on NASA TV. My friends don't get into Astronomy. Yet, when they see something on the News, they think of me and have the need to discuss. No one's mention Deep Impact.

On the morning News, they only mentioned the Russian Astrologist suing NASA. The anchor's sure chuckled about that story. "And NASA has had no comment."

The information is emerging painfully slowly:

From the current analysis, it appears most likely that the impactor did not create a large new zone of activity and may have failed to liberate a large quantity of pristine material from beneath the surface.

Would that be a thud?

If you contrast that report with this one, dated the day after the impact, it is easy to see how the initial reports were biased by prior expectations:

The impact surprised researchers in both its magnitude and its structure. The sequence of images from the Deep Impact mother ship shows a small flash, a slight delay and then a larger flash, said Peter Schultz of Brown University, a project co-investigator.

That suggests that the 820-pound impactor, which struck the surface of the comet at a speed of 6.3 miles per second, burrowed into a powdery layer in the nucleus before encountering a solid surface of ice or rock below it, Schultz said.

While it makes sense for NASA to spend a little time making sure the releases are accurate, they shouldn't camp on post impact images and spectral profiles. There is a puzzle here, and if everyone is hiding a piece, no one will solve it.

Edited to add:

Gemini North Telescope

Researchers in two control rooms on Hawaii's Big Island (on Mauna Kea and in Hilo) were able to keep enough composure amid an almost giddy excitement to perform a preliminary analysis of the data. They concluded from the mid-infrared spectroscopic observations that there was strong evidence for silicates or rocky material exposed by the impact.

Thud.

[Candy]

Hey! A Bunker? 8)

[Mr. Manly]

Well, I'm not a researcher so I'm happy to wait. While I do find the subject interesting, I don't need to know every theory and guess that goes into the final proof.
When the reports start coming out I want to know that they are the best available info on the subject.

[The Messenger]

Another fuzzup!

NASA's Deep Impact may fail to live up to its billing as the first mission to look inside a comet. Computer processing designed to correct the spacecraft's defocused camera cannot fully correct the images taken just after impact.

Bummer, but not unexpected - deconvolution schemes require some absolute indexing reference...Be that as it may, blurry images are better than nothing - give us a peek, NASA, especially since:

But scientists are still in contact with the spacecraft and are re-calibrating HRI, ... "We still hope to see the crater," A’Hearn told New Scientist.

What if there is no crater? If the probe just scattered a bunch of surface dust, will the image manipulation process a faux hole? Even a blurry image should reveal the approximate magnetude of the crater if it is anything like the prior expectations video.

(Frankly, our knowledge of the universe would be much more advanced if prior expectations were withheld from analytical groups studying all the odd-ball data.)

With the data in hand, an argument can be made that comets are covered with very fine solar dust. Fine particle dust has very high surface area, and therefore can-and-will absorb copious quantities of moisture - moisture easily released when the comet is heated by the sun or impact with a big chunk of copper.

Uexpected dust, unexpectedly brilliant flash on impact, we know only one thing for certain: The 'dirty snowball' model doesn't fit this comet.

Dust samples from comet Wild2 will be parachuted to the Utah desert in January of 2006. Any odds on how much, and what kind of dirt we will find?

[Superluminal]

The particles picked up by Stardust most likely will turn out to be material blasted into space by jets, not surface material. But how much you want to bet that it raises more questions than it settles?

[The Messenger]

As the comet turns...

Based on preliminary X-ray analysis, O'Brien estimates that several tens of thousands of tons of material were released, enough to bury Penn State's football field under 30 feet of comet dust. Observations and analysis are ongoing at the Swift Mission Operations Center at Penn State University as well as in Italy and the United Kingdom.

From the current analysis, it appears most likely that the impactor did not create a large new zone of activity and may have failed to liberate a large quantity of pristine material from beneath the surface.

Three things:

1) I really don't mind when preliminary reports are wrong, or are later qualified. We want information right away, and we should be prepared to accept and not be over critical when further examination changes the prospective.

2) When initial reports are wrong, the responsible party should step forward and specifically state such, and why. I just led a discussion with a group of Space Camp kids, every one of whom were convinced Deep Impact had blasted a deep icy crater. We don't know what happened.

3) Preliminary reports should be based upon preliminary observations, not prior expectations, stating just what was observed. Again, right after the impact a well known BB guru stated "It looks like the 'dirty snowball' model is holding up very well", when there was no data to justify that statement.

Bandwagons.

[The Messenger]

I don't think our little spike of copper was much of a bother to Temple 1.

Question: What resists impact better than dirty ice, but creates a dust cloud when you stir it up?

Bare earth comes to mind. Spectra would shed some light on the subject. Hearn said it would take 'up to two weeks' to calibrate and report on an impact temperature. Now we are told to wait for peer reviewed articles - possibly by September, but don't hold your breath.

Are peer reviews acting as filters? Rejecting any notion that anomalous results may require revised scientific theory?

At the European Southern Observatory in Chile, astronomer Hermann Boehnhardt headed a campaign to use all seven of the ESO telescopes to watch Tempel 1, at every wavelength of light that was not blocked by the Earth's atmosphere. "For a number of days after the impact you have this ejecta cloud going to the southwest, and this disappeared after three or four days in the coma again, because the dust was blown off," he said.

Based upon the observations performed at ESO, Boehnhardt believes that Deep Impact had no lasting effect on Tempel 1. "The comet never went away from its normal state -- its [formerly] active regions were still active during the impact of course, and you can see the active regions shining through the ejecta cloud. It looks like the ejecta cloud was on top of something that was there all the time, before and after."

Butch: "Bring some more dynamite...a lot"

[Candy]

The Messenger is stimulating my mind.