{ SPACE EXPLORATION } NASA blasts a comet in the name of science. /// BY JOHN SHIBLEY DEEP IMPACT delivers a SPACECRAFT ENCOUNTERS WITH COMETS ARE HARDLY NEW. During the past twenty years, seven craft have bolted past five comets for quick looks. In 1985, a retargeted NASA solar probe swept through the coma and tail of Comet Giacobini-Zinner. In 1986, Europeans, Japanese, and Russians dispatched four spacecraft to fly past Comet Halley. One of them, the European Space Agency’s Giotto spacecraft, passed within 120 miles (200 kilometers) of Halley to return humanity’s first close-up look at the solid center of a comet. In 1992, the spacecraft went on to fly past Comet Grigg-Skjellerup. Humans didn’t get another close look at a comet’s nucle- us until 2001, when a spacecraft — Deep Space 1 — launched primarily to test emerging technologies delivered a science bonus by flying 1,350 miles (2,200 km) past Comet Borrelly. Deep Space 1’s camera revealed a peanut- shaped body the size of Mount Everest covered with HI splotches of light and dark material. In January 2004, NASA’s first successful dedicated comet mission, Stardust, not only flew to within 180 miles (300 km) of its target comet, Wild 2, but also extended a sample paddle to capture dust particles and motes given off by the comet’s active nucleus. The sample will return to Earth inside a capsule in February 2006, when it will be dis- tributed around the world for laboratory analysis. 28 explore the universe 2005 COMET TEMPEL 1 is the target of the impactor launched by the Deep Impact spacecraft in T this artist’s conception. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY But in 2005, a spacecraft will go one step further. A mission dubbed Deep Impact will reach out and literally smack a comet. Its goal is to create a fresh crater on the surface of a comet for scientists to study. Mission to touch a comet The Deep Impact mission is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in December 2004 for an encounter with Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. Deep Impact is actually two spacecraft in one: a flyby ship and an 800-pound (370-kilo- gram) drop-probe impactor. Twenty-four hours before closest approach, the mother ship will release its payload to the surface of Comet Tempel 1. The projectile will hit at 6.3 miles per second (10.2 km/sec) with the energy of 4.8 tons of TNT. The impactor’s kinetic punch is thanks to a 220-pound (100-kg) “cratering mass” of solid copper. The impactor’s flight con- trol system will tweak its trajectory to hit exactly where mission planners want to create the crater on Tempel 1. A guiding “impact targeting sensor” should return stunning photos during its approach. DEEP SPACE 1 (right) was launched on October 24, 1998, and made its closest encounter with The mother ship, with its modest bat- Comet Borrelly (left), on September 22, 2001. This image shows the 5-mile-long (8 km) nucleus of tery of scientific instruments, will sail by the comet from a distance of 2,000 miles (3,200 km). NASA and watch the impact’s fireworks from a safe distance of 300 miles (500 km). It will carry cameras that will capture images on TER approach, when the impactor hits, and UPI J during flyby. Both imagers are fitted with filters designed to help identify the spec- tral signatures of minerals and ices. The high-resolution imager’s infrared sensitivi- Tempel 1 at launch December 2004 ty also will capture the heat signatures of certain materials on the comet’s surface, in the freshly blasted crater, and within ejecta The Deep Impact spacecraft will created by the impactor. Imagers also take approximately 6 months to should collect a bonanza of data from the arrive at Comet Tempel 1. dust cloud around the comet. On closest approach, the high-resolution camera should resolve details on the comet’s sur- RS MA face as small as 20 feet (6 meters) per pixel Earth at launch on the camera’s electronic sensor chip. At this scale, the impactor’s crater should US EN appear between 60 and 100 pixels across in Spacecraft V Y the camera’s field of view. UR C R All told, the impact encounter will be E M SUN brief. From impactor hit through crater formation to a flyby glance, the mother ship will have slightly more than 13 Earth at encounter John Shibley, a fan of the space program, loves Tempel 1 at encounter to observe comets. He is also a contributing edi- July 2005 tor of Astronomy. 30 explore the universe 2005 minutes to collect its data. The crater event will take about 200 seconds to unfold. On Earth, we’ll follow events in near real time. It will take only about 7½ min- utes for radio signals traveling at the speed of light to reach Earth. Don Yeomans, who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, calculates that Deep Impact’s punch will change the comet’s speed by a miniscule 0.000004 inch per second (0.0001 millimeter per second). This will decrease the comet’s closest-approach distance to the Sun (peri- helion) by 33 feet (10m) and will reduce its orbital period by less than a second. Punched-up science Why bother to hit a comet? To see what lies beneath, the thinking goes. For billions of years, a comet’s surface is “seasoned” during its travels through interplanetary space. Short-period comets like Tempel 1 alternately freeze and thaw as their orbits carry them into the outer solar system’s colder depths and then into the Sun’s warmth again. With each close pass by the Sun, a comet’s icy body boils and geysers blast and reshape what started MORE THAN 625,000 NAMES will fly along with Deep Impact, thanks to a free, public sign-up NASA out as a pristine surface. Over time, this created through the Internet. Here, a technician attaches the CD-ROM that contains the names to the freeze-thaw cycle creates a crusty veneer “mother ship” part of the spacecraft. NASA under which older, relatively unmodified material resides. If the comet’s surface is tough and In 1881, less than twenty years after its Scientists want to know just how thick weathered, the crust might stand up to the discovery in 1867 by German astronomer this crust layer is. A thick cap of weathered force of the impactor and form a crater Ernst Tempel, Jupiter changed the comet’s material protects the volatile ices under- with a small ejecta blanket. If Tempel 1 orbit. Two more Jupiter encounters — in neath and ultimately affects how long it turns out to be porous, the impact could 1941 and 1953 — modified the comet’s takes a comet to erode. By the same token, be absorbed and dissipated to create a orbit even more. After its discovery a thinner, protective layer would mean that somewhat smaller, but very deep, crater. appearance, astronomers didn’t recover the comets are not the pristine repositories of Scientists expect the crater will be no early solar system material that scientists wider than 330 feet (100m) and no hope they are. deeper than 80 feet (25m). Whether the outer layer is thick or thin, Features in any ejecta blanket that just looking at freshly exposed ice on a forms also will shed light on the comet’s surface is something astronomers comet’s crust and what lies beneath it. have never had the chance to do. The spec- Deeper (presumably pristine) material tral features of pristine ice will speak vol- will land closer to the crater. Older umes about how the comet formed. The material that composes the crust will relative amount of volatiles, such as be blasted farther away. methane and ammonia, bound in the exposed ice will open a window to how A Rubicon called Tempel 1 cold it was in the early solar system. Tempel 1 isn’t a fresh comet by a long Aside from opening a hole in the shot. It’s spent the past 300,000 years or so DEEP IMPACT’S “IMPACTOR” SPACECRAFT is designed to be released from the main part of comet’s crust to peer into with the space- in an orbit that takes it from near Jupiter’s the spacecraft and crash into Comet Tempel 1 craft’s cameras, the act of impacting a orbit to just inside Mars’s. Indeed, it was at a speed of 23,000 miles per hour (10 comet is a unique physics experiment. The probably a relatively close encounter with km/sec). By measuring the crater that will be crater’s size and appearance will yield Jupiter that changed Tempel 1’s orbit from formed by the 820-pound (370 kg) impactor, important clues about the comet’s surface a period of several thousand years to its astronomers will develop better theories of strength and mechanics. present-day 5½ years. cometary composition. NASA www.astronomy.com 31 /// HOW TO SPOT TEMPEL 1 Apr 1 N 16 Dec 2 17 ε May 1 Jan 1 17 Mar 2 Feb 15 SERPENS 31 16 16 CAPUT 31 δ ζ β γ VIRGO June 15 May 1 June 1 Apr 1 July 1 Mar 1 Aug 1 Path of Jupiter E Feb 1 Jan 1 β 30 Deep Impact Spica γ LIBRA July 15 α CORPIUS β 30 CORVUS δ Path of Aug 14 Comet Tempel 1 π ο 29 5° While the Tempel 1/Deep Impact action is hap- tiny chunk of ice is negligible; a comet’s bright- Tempel 1’s apparent daily motion in the sky pening in space, you can be right in the middle ness comes from a coma of glowing gas and during May, June, and into July will speed up of it from your backyard.