NASA Launched Projectile at Asteroid

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Anyone knows more about that ?
cause i have read that in the newspaper. And in about 15 Minutes youre about th see an Lightning Flash in the Sky.
(not Germany :( )

They wanted to try something out. Like if they could blast them into 2 pieces or what.
 
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It was on the news, I don't think they were going to destroy it. All I know is that the probe itself is the size of a washing machine and has attached itself to the asteroid to analyse it's molecular buildup, find out where it came from, how long it's existed, etc, then send the data back to Earth.
 
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I dunno if they are trying to set that thinggy down on the Asteroid.
Cause i read, that they shooted an over 300 kg Projectile at it and trying to blast an hole into it so they can see how ol he is.
 
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Maybe they are testing the rockets and stuff because there isn't going to be a man going up in a NASA rocket untill like 2007. Thats what they predicted because they have to re-do like all of their rockets because they were only supposed to have a little foam come out after lift off like a dime size or so mething and they had a whole lot which could cause the rocket to blow up later or something so they have to re-model the rockets and everything they are starting over.
 
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as you should know, that lump of space rock has been flying around space for millions of years, in theory, under that pourus coating, should be substances that where first formed where planets are created, they belive they can use this to discover the beggining of the world and possibly new substances.

as for where there doing, there thowing a barrel of explosive at it and the shuttle is gonna try and take snapshots of the result as well as collect samples, imagine a bullet, hitting another bullet while another bullet gets in the right position, the explosions should be the size of a football stadium and can be seen from earth \o/
 
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Ah thx for the Info.

Hopefully we get to see some Pics of that Boom soon.
Cause you sure dont get to see this everyday.
 
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already has, saw it on the news about 5am gmt, and it said 2 hours, so it probably went up about 7-8am gmt, we wont get much response for a while though,
 
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They were not trying to blast a hole it it. They were merely trying to get the "Deep Impact" probe as close to the core as possible. If you mean the explosion that happened when the probe hit the comet; the explosion was an equivalent to 60 tons of dynamite. Like it was said previously in this thread; Scientists are trying to gather as much data as possible as they believe that this comet might unlock the secrets of how planets were formed.
 
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in a related story
Nasa gets sued because a russian female thinks that Nasa Damaging the asteroid ruined her horoscope
 
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Gah. I was just going to post something about Deep Impact. Anyway...

It didn't explode, and nobody expected it to. Believe it or not, the city-sized comet itself was completely unaffected by the blast. Its orbit didn't change a bit, only the inner layer of dust and gas around the comet increased in size. Hubble was pointed at Tempel 1 at the time of the impact, but it didn't get a very clear picture due to the cloud of dust and gas surrounding the comet.

The main reason NASA is doing this is for the reasons people have already stated. They want to see what's at the core of the comet and study it. Comets, asteroids, and other "floating junk" are believed to be the some of the oldest things in our Solar System. If we know how they were formed, we'd know how most other things in our system were formed as well.

There's a Universe Today article about it here. We're alive for history, this is the first time we've put a probe on something other than a planet (awaits bad probe/Uranus joke).

EDIT: Holy crap, Prozac. I thought you were joking until I looked that story up. o_o
Apparently this whole incident cost her $311 million in moral and spiritual damages? That's funny, because I doubt it even cost Tempel 1 that much damage, and it was the one getting hit by Deep Impact.
 
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SSJGoku83 said:
Anyone knows more about that ?
cause i have read that in the newspaper. And in about 15 Minutes youre about th see an Lightning Flash in the Sky.
(not Germany :( )
.
in Romania the news tell that the "scientists" (morons) tell that is actually a space ship filled with a new civilization of smart reptiles that is going to arrive to earth in 3 ears lalallalal.........


hidden behind or inside or the comet
 
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I like the metaphore they used to describe that the asteroid wouldn't change orbit.

'it's like a musquito crashing into a boeing 747'

or something to that extend, but yes it was merely to do research because the asteroid contains substances that were already there when space itself was very young. so interesting to hear about that.
 

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