Deep Impact's Dead Horse Lives On

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dmjspace

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More Deep Impact news was reported in <i> Science </i> recently.<br /><br />Some disappointing news for the "dirty snowball" model:<br /><br />Only 15 millionths of the surface area of the comet showed evidence of water ice. That's right: a mere 0.000015 of the surface was water ice. <br /><br />According to the paper's authors:<br /><br /><i> The surface area of Tempel 1 is roughly 45 square miles or 1.2 billion square feet. The ice, however, covers roughly 300,000 square feet. And only 6 percent of that area consists of pure water ice. The rest is dust. </i><br /><br />Comets are supposed to be snowballs. Not dust. These findings are consistent with earlier reports from the Deep Impact team that the impact ejecta showed a 10-1 dust-to-vapor ratio.<br /><br />It's pretty clear that comets are not what they were envisioned to be when the dirty snowball model was invented.<br /><br />Instead, they are incredibly dark, dusty bodies with characteristics statistically similar to asteroids, a fact consistent with the competing model of comet and asteroid formation, the EPH.<br /><br />(Regarding my edit...Sorry. In my original post I errantly overestimated the detected water content by a factor of ten.)
 
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bonzelite

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it's pretty clear, at least to me, that lots of stuff is not what it's envisioned to be. i think deep impact had a huge impact on lots of egos that were betting the farm on cometary water-based seeding/lap of life and exogenesis planetary sperm bank creation miracle proponents. <br /><br />Mars is more of a dirty snowball than anything else i've seen so far. at least insofar as it's near subsurface. ok, then, a dirty snowball with a big rock in it.<br /><br /><br />
 
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telfrow

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A little context...<br /><br /><i>According to the new research in Science, the comet's surface features three pockets of thin ice. The area the ice covers is small. The surface area of Tempel 1 is roughly 45 square miles or 1.2 billion square feet. The ice, however, covers roughly 300,000 square feet. And only 6 percent of that area consists of pure water ice. The rest is dust. <br /><br />"It's like a seven-acre skating rink of snowy dirt," said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown, Deep Impact co-investigator and co-author on the Science paper. <br /><br />Sunshine, Schultz and the rest of the team arrived at their findings by analyzing data captured by an infrared spectrometer, an optical instrument that uses light to determine the composition of matter. <br /><br />Based on this spectral data, it appears that the surface ice used to be inside Tempel 1 but became exposed over time. The team reports that jets – occasional blasts of dust and vapor – may send this surface ice, as well as interior ice, to the coma, or tail, of Tempel 1. <br /><br />"So we know we're looking at a geologically active body whose surface is changing over time," Schultz said. "Now we can begin to understand how and why these jets erupt." </i><br /><br /> Link<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>
 
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mikeemmert

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Tempel 1's perihelion of only 1.506 AU and exposure to the Sun since at least 1867 make it unsurprising that the ice has evaporated off it's surface. It's a short period comet, ranging from 5.5 to 6.5 years, and it is quite dim, reaching only 11th magnitude.<br /><br />It may very well have had a lot more ice in the past.
 
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telfrow

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<b>Ice Exists on Surface of Comet, But Most Lies Deeper</b><br /><br />Release from The University of Maryland <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>
 
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dmjspace

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telfrow said: <font color="yellow"> Ice Exists on Surface of Comet, But Most Lies Deeper </font><br /><br />How convenient. This is starting to sound like the planetary scientists' version of "dark matter." <br /><br />As I predicted at the beginning of the original Deep Impact thread, the "dirty snowball" crowd is now being forced to postulate that the required ice is even deeper below the surface.<br /><br />Yet, Deep Impact was <i> designed </i> to ensure the liberation of vast quantities of water ice from Tempel 1. All prior expectations based on the dirty snowball model suggested that a 23,000 mph impact into the heart of a comet would produce literal <b> geysers </b> of water.<br /><br />They did not expect the ice to be deep. After all, this was a "snowball," right? But the model now requires a fundamental change in order to rescue it.<br /><br />It's all fine and good to revise a theory (I prefer the term "patch"). It's more important, however, to revisit theories that were right from the beginning, such as the EPH, which suggested that Tempel 1 would be little different from the average asteroid.
 
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CalliArcale

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Yet, Deep Impact was designed to ensure the liberation of vast quantities of water ice from Tempel 1.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Not exactly. I'm an engineer. You can't design things to perform with as much certainty as you seem to suggest when you don't know a number of critical factors about the target. Heck, there are critical factors about the whole concept which weren't well enough known. Nobody'd ever tried a mission like this before, so I don't think you can fairly expect the results to be well defined in advance. Even if the "dirty snowball" concept is accurate. Without actually getting close to Tempel 1, there was no way to know how dense it was or whether or not it was uniform. Those are extremely important factors in estimating how the energy of impact will be distributed through the target, and they can vary widely even among objects with exactly the same chemical makeup.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>It's more important, however, to revisit theories that were right from the beginning, such as the EPH, which suggested that Tempel 1 would be little different from the average asteroid.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That statement seems to suggest that "average asteroids" shouldn't vary either. But that's defintiely not supported by the evidence. Just look at how much trouble Hayabusa had at Itokawa. Itokawa is very different from Eros, and a lot harder to sample. Would you seriously argue that scientists didn't know anything about asteroids because the Hayabusa mission team underestimated the dustiness and irregularity of Itokawa? Of course not, since they had very good data from NEAR-Shoemaker on which to base their estimates. It just so happens that although Eros and Itokawa appear to have a lot in common, they're sufficiently different that the engineering team's assumptions were not suitable for sampling Itokawa. They knew there was a chance <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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bonzelite

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<font color="yellow">Ice Exists on Surface of Comet, But Most Lies Deeper </font><br /><br />How convenient. This is starting to sound like the planetary scientists' version of "dark matter." <br /><br /><br />^^^exactly. <br /><br />it is laughable how they cannot let go of the whole dirty snowball idea upon having actual physical evidence to the contrary!! this is proof of ad hoc theory politics at work. they must now create more "theory" out of nothing because they cannot accept they were wrong. and would lead to the pursuit of alternative ideas. and they just cannot have that. <br /><br />unbelievable. <br />
 
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yevaud

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Science is all about radically new ideas.<br /><br />Only untrained sophists sit and sneer at how much they "profoundly" know compared to experts in a field, based on their non training, education, or knowledge.<br /><br />Just as you're doing now. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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bonzelite

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<font color="yellow"><br />Science is all about radically new ideas.</font><br /><br />agreed. and the antics being carried out about the now very obvious holding onto a b.s. idea runs counter to radically new ideas. <br /><br />and the name-calling doesn't help your case by the way. go have something to eat to bring your blood sugar back up. jeez. <br /><br /><br /><br />
 
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yevaud

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You might go back and read all of your own snide commentary, before making that kind of comment. In fact, the "everyone is out to destroy this hypothesis" one of 4:09 pm, just a few posts back. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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bonzelite

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who are you talking about? i don't have such a post in this thread. <br /><br />
 
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yevaud

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<i>it is laughable how they cannot let go of the whole dirty snowball idea upon having actual physical evidence to the contrary!! this is proof of ad hoc theory politics at work. they must now create more "theory" out of nothing because they cannot accept they were wrong. and would lead to the pursuit of alternative ideas. and they just cannot have that.</i><br /><br />Explain to me how that means anything but. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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yevaud

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Basically, you say there that since the results didn't meet their expectations - of which you can have no expert knowledge in any event - that they therefore invented a few theories to "explain it all away." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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jatslo

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I have access to data for all to see; are you ready to go a few rounds with Jatslo? I ask first, becuase of your ignorance behavior towards me, and others who hold minority viewpoints. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" />
 
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telfrow

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<font color="yellow">and the name-calling doesn't help your case by the way.</font><br /><br />Like referring to anyone who disagrees with your position as lacking the intelligence of an "average ape?" <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>
 
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bonzelite

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<font color="yellow"><br />Basically, you say there that since the results didn't meet their expectations - of which you can have no expert knowledge in any event - that they therefore invented a few theories to "explain it all away."</font><br /><br />right. how is this a problem for you? the results nearly in NO WAY met their gushing eureka moment. now they insist the water must be buried ever deeper when it is laden on the dust grains throughout the comet, per observations, per published journals. the water is already there in the dust. and it is everywhere. where is the problem?
 
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bonzelite

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<font color="yellow">Like referring to anyone who disagrees with your position as lacking the intelligence of an "average ape?"</font><br /><br />tel, we're all average apes. you misunderstood my post. WE ARE the apes. for example, any average ape can figure out how to make a peanut butter sandwich. a common person with any sense can find gaping flaws in pop-sci ideas. it doesn't take much. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />
 
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yevaud

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The funny thing is that the expectation of a "gushing eureka" has always existed in the minds of the anti-"snowball" crowd - and having not seen it, it QED means all legitimate scientists and hence science must be delusional.<br /><br />No such "geyser" was ever expected. There would be an energetic emission from the impact, seen, which would yield data. Specifically, that 80% H2O your own reference mentioned detecting. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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yevaud

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I'm not sure what to say to someone who decides that even the Mission's own Spectroscopy Team (which detected significant H2O emission from the impact) must be wrong. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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yevaud

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Ok, that was mean-spirited. I apologize.<br /><br />Look, if what is detected by the very analysis team from the Deep Impact mission detects significant H2O, then what is the issue here?<br /><br />Is a Comet composed of many things? Assuredly. Conventional science believes it's mainly H2O in the for of ice. So far, nothing has been to contradict that. New observations and discoveries, sure. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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bonzelite

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the 80% H20 is the volatile component of the comet. not the non-volatile part. ice is adhered throughout the dust layers. so, yes, there is water there. i'm supporting that. i've never refuted that. the comet is full of water in the form of super-fine ice turned vapor on the dust. this is not a gusher, nor is it even remotely a snowball. it is far from that. it is an object composed of cigarette smoke-like dust, as far we know. with sublimating volatiles. for example, you can have billows of steam pouring off a piece of lead and it will not indicate the lead is mostly water. <br /><br />could there be an icy core or mantle? maybe. do findings lean more and more to that conclusion --- /> no. <br /><br />do comets vary in composition? certainly. <br /><br />is one comet the example for all comets? no. <br /><br />has the snowman come a knockin' at our doors? ----- /> so far, no.
 
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yevaud

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See, you keep stating these profound certitudes:<br /><br /><i>do findings lean more and more to that conclusion ---> no.</i><br /><br />That's an example. <br /><br />Where is your evidence? You expertise? Van Flandern? RCH? Electric-Thunderbolt.com? In short, you have none. You assume that the mission-scientists make guesses the same way you are doing. Wrong.<br /><br />You are not Planetary Scientists, yet you second-guess the experts in this via conjecture, personal opinion, and assumption.<br /><br />Give me a frigging break. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>
 
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Saiph

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You're making a lot of absolute statements without support:<br /><br />Example: Ice is adhered throughout the dust layers<br /><br />Okay, that meshes with findings on the surface, that there isn't much actual ice on the surface (in large sheets anyway). Whats there is in small patches, or in the dust. I'll give you that.<br /><br />But... you need to support that in your arguement. You especially need to support this: <blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>the comet is full of water in the form of super-fine ice turned vapor on the dust<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>I see no reason to conclude that. I see no reason to pick that option over a largely ice core (though you're right, there isn't much to support that either).<br /><br />Here's the current logic string for the comets: <br /><br />Lots of water in the coma, must be lots of ice on the comet. It would be easiest to get from the comet, to the coma, if it's on the surface: Uh oh! Not as much on the surface as we thought. Okay, water has to be somewhere (isn't enough on surface) so it's <i>probably</i> deeper down in higher concentrations. <br /><br />Now, I don't see a problem with that. However, you are right in saying there may be some factors or mechanisms we don't have enough information on, that may allow lots of water to be released from ice trapped in the dust.<br /><br />I do not see indications of a superfine dust, nor indications that the investigators expected a gushing geyser of liquid water.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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bonzelite

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Saiph, you're basically agreeing with me while providing some devil's advocate ideas. so how are we in disagreement? i'm openly skeptical as well about findings. sure, the whole thing can be a front for the icy ball underneath. yeah. that is a possiblity. i can have a drink to that. <br /><br />and yet the data has revealed the comet to be very superfine it's composition, primarily of dust. what was exploded out was mostly fine powder. not chunks of anything, not chunks of ice, not chunks of rock. the tail is super duper fine dust. the exploded material is dust. how are we all so in disagreement? how is it not finely grained material when that is all they are finding? this is all over the internet and press. there are too many links to provide here for that. the Halley data, albeit older, confirms this to be true. data indicated super fine water crystals adhered to dust grains. and this ice became vapourous in the tail. <br /><br />i'm not deaf dumb and blind to the idea of subsurface ice. there is loads of that on mars, more than likely. there is strong evidence for that. so i get it. that idea is not so elusive. i'm awake and i hear it. on mars you have permafrost and recently formed gullies by outflow. you have terrain softening at craters and hills and cliffs. you have telltale signs practically written on the wall that points to subsurface ice, if not ice/dirt aggregate, if not actual water somewhere. i am on board and warm fuzzied to death over that. <br /><br />but the comet is crashing the party. it ain't no ice ball. and i leave room for being way off on this and wrong. of course. but i'm not enthused about the dirty snowball. that has lost it's lustre. and i'm not saying it's the EU model. i don't even care about that in this case. i'm looking at what is there and making an assessment. and i don't see why the former idea is so damn sacred. why? nothing is that sacred, my god.
 
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