NASA's Deep Impact what did they conclude?

[nexius]

Sadly, I had nothing to do on a saturday night and was flipping the channels and came upon Discovery Channels "Big-Science" and this episode was NASA's Deep Imact space project. Just in case your not familiar, they constructed a device that intercepted with a comet shooting a projectile into it. This blew a hole in the comet and they collected the dust from the insides (to summarize quickly). The program ended with just that, and did not tell us what they discovered? Does anyone know?

 

[willpittenger]

There was no collection. Rather a camera on the parent spacecraft examined the result. I'll let someone more knowedgable explain the scientific results. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[flynn]

NewScientist ran this story a week or so ago.<br /><br />Story <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[telfrow]

Deep Impact Site - See "What We Learned From the Science Results" link. <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>

 

[nexius]

oh thanks guys maybe I was thinking about project stardust http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/main/index.html

 

[telfrow]

News From Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society Meeting<br /><br /><i>Don Brownlee of the University of Washington presented results from the Stardust mission, which flew near Comet Wild-2, collected material that the comet spews out, and returned it to Earth in a capsule. It, too, found silicates, as well as grains called Calcium-Aluminum Inclusions, which are mixtures of various minerals, all of which form at high temperatures.</i> <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>

 

[willpittenger]

Just in case you are not aware of it, Stardust crashed. That may have contaminated some of the samples. Others might not have been sucessfully recovered from the desert crash site. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Just in case you are not aware of it, Stardust crashed."</font><br /><br />Nope -- Genesis crashed. Stardust landed successfully.

 

[willpittenger]

Guess its easy to get them mixed up. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

Well -- I never have myself. However, you do have documented evidence that it's possible, so I find myself unable to argue with that theory. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[brellis]

*BUMP* - Did I read something about the Deep Impact craft moving on to another comet, of course <i>sans</i> impactor probe... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Drilling down deep in the DI pages, I found this:<br /><br /><font color="yellow"> <i>"the option to target the spacecraft to Comet Boethin was chosen and the Earth-return targeting maneuver was executed on July 20th."</i></font><br /><br />I assume that was July 20 last year, not this year.<br /><br />MW<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

From a 10/30/06 NASA news release:<br /><br />The three missions of opportunity selected for concept studies are:<br /><br />-- The Deep Impact eXtended Investigation of Comets (DIXI) mission would use the existing Deep Impact spacecraft for an extended flyby mission to a second comet ....<br /><br />-- The Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh) mission would use the high-resolution camera on the Deep Impact spacecraft to search for the first Earth-sized planets detected around other stars....<br /><br />-- The Stardust NExT mission would use the existing Stardust spacecraft to flyby comet Tempel 1 and observe changes since the Deep Impact mission visited it in 2005. ...<br /><br />NASA may select one or more investigations to continue into a development effort after detailed review of the concept studies. Decisions about which mission concepts will proceed to development are expected next year. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[comga]

Yes, the retargeting was done July 20, 2005, barely two weeks after the encounter with Tempel 1.

 

[3488]

Deep Impact is headed for Comet Boethin, a Jupiter family comet.<br /><br />Stardust will rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1, to obtain high resolution images of the nucleus to supplement those already obtained by Deep Impact & to search for the elusive crater made by the Deep Impact impactor.<br /><br />There may be a chance for either / both to rendezous near Earth asteroids.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[comga]

"Deep Impact is headed for Comet Boethin, a Jupiter family comet. Stardust will rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1, to obtain high resolution images of the nucleus"<br /><br />Actually both programs, and EPOCh, have won $250k study contracts. It is hard for me to imagine all three "Missions of Opportunity" getting funded. My opinion is that Stardust has the weakest observational capability and potential results, with its small, fogged Navigation Camera to be trained on a well characterized comet.<br /><br />To be even more accurate, Deep Impact IS irrevocably headed for Comet Boethin as you said. The question is whether it will head there with precision and be operated to observe the comet .