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| Transportation
-> Aerospace |
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-> Copper Spacecraft to Collide with
Comet
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| Copper Spacecraft to Collide with Comet |
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  On
July 4th, 2005, the world's first copper spacecraft is scheduled to
collide with the comet Tempel 1 in a project known as Deep Impact.
The historic collision will be visible by telescope from Earth and
will also be televised for people without telescopes.
The collision is expected to help reveal through spectral analysis
the primordial materials that formed the solar system some 4 billion
years ago. That's when comets were created.
Why is this unique spacecraft being made from copper? Because when
copper burns - which it will from the enormous force of the impact
- it is less likely than other metals to create bright, confusing
emission spectra. Aluminum is not suitable for the experiment because
it would react with water in the comet, creating aluminum oxide and
producing very bright emissions that could distort the data.
Deep Impact is actually a 2-part vehicle: a 495 kilogram (1,100 pound)
impactor that is nearly all copper, and an instrument platform with
spectroscopes and TV cameras to record the impact. As Deep Impact
nears the comet, the two halves will part. While the impactor continues
towards the comet at 35,200 kph (22,000 mph), the platform will pass
slowly nearby. Analysis of the impact will be performed by spectrographs
on the platform. The images and data will then be transmitted back
to Earth.
Giant telescopes, such as the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and
the newly launched Chandra X-Ray Telescope, will also be focused on
the impact site to gather as much information as possible.
The launch of Deep Impact is planned for January 2004 and will take
18 months to reach the chosen target. At that time, Tempel 1 will
be 128 million kilometers (80 million miles) from Earth and 224 million
kilometers (140 million miles) from the Sun.
Deep Impact is expected to gouge a 30-meter (100-foot) deep crater
in Tempel 1 to expose primordial materials for spectroscopic analysis.
The craft will be built and launched at a cost of $240 million.
For more information, visit http://www.ball.com/aerospace/deepimpact.html
and http://deepimpact.umd.edu.
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