[meteorite-list] Deep Impact

From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jul 4 14:13:08 2005
Message-ID: <1b8.166c6d06.2ffad62e_at_aol.com>

Hot Dog, nice flying for the Comet-whacking team-I''ve been awed by the
coordinated assault on the big dirty NY snowball, and I suspect by now I'm just
as burnt out as the impactor. Let me add to the foolish puns: Congratulations
on the perfect pitch. What more could the world get from the USA on July
4th, 2005? great Baseball...mmmm: I got it: Now setting "a course" of Apple
Pie!!! Yes please navigate pies into Dr. Grammier and Dr. Ahearn, each, a
precision impacted congratulatory apple pie-in-the-face impactor for a nice
celebration!

Buy me some peanuts and cracker-jack pitch team members like those JPL
navigators and navigation designers anytime. At this point time for a cup of co
ffee. Reports are coming in that we can expect something as much as a 3.5
magnitude decrease [that would be a 25 times increase in "linear brightness".]
That would put the comet within the range of a reasonable pair of binoculars
under reasonably dark skies tonight. (And probably a crater in the range of
50-60 meters in diameter on the comet)...

One thing that bugs me...Has NASA developed hyperspace communications and
not mentioned that? The NASA reports have visual confirmation via downloaded
date of impact just 5 minutes after the officially confirmed impact at 52
minutes before the hour. The light needs close to 7 minutes 26 seconds to get
to JPL. Was impact really earlier or have I missed something? Or was the
"image showing the tell-tale signs of high-speed impact" actually not a
mentioned, but rather just an image confirming the trajectory with 100% probability
of impact? This is important for back-yard amateurs to know who followed the
event.

NASA said:
"The collision between the coffee table-sized impactor and city-sized comet
occurred at 1:52 a.m. EDT......Official word of the impact came 5 minutes
after impact. At 1:57 a.m. EDT, an image from the spacecraft's medium resolution
camera downlinked to the computer screens of the mission's science team
showed the tell-tale signs of a high-speed impact."

Saludos, Doug
Received on Mon 04 Jul 2005 02:13:02 PM PDT