[meteorite-list] Deep Impact

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Jul 5 19:03:47 2005
Message-ID: <200507052303.j65N30T05492_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

> 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.

Both times are in Earth-Receive time, which means it already includes the one-way
light time. The impact occurred at 10:52 PM PDT ERT, which we could tell when
we lost the signal from the impactor. Of course, the impact really occurred 7+ minutes
before that, but it took that long for the signal to reach Earth. Five minutes
later at 10:57 PM PDT ERT, we received the first image from the flyby spacecraft
confirming the impact.

Ron Baalke
Received on Tue 05 Jul 2005 07:03:00 PM PDT