SCI/TECH: Watch Deep Impact's Comet Collision Via Live Webcast

From what I've seen of the impact vehicle, there is no sort of heat shield, so IF it misses and is heading this way it would burn up in the atmosphere on reentry. It's a pretty fragile (relatively speaking) vehicle. It wasn't designed to enter atmosphere anywhere so it doesn't have any sort of ability to withstand the stress of reentry.

If I've figured it out right, it should be 3:52 Pm Tuesday afternoon in Melbourne. It looks like 10 hours difference between you and the East Coast, but you're a day ahead.

Well it's 3rd of july here in Melbourne now, and it's Sunday, so it's 2 and a half more days for me?

It looks like Tuesday afternoon for Australia. It's 10pm here Saturday night, and it's scheduled for about 8pm tomorrow night for me.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Actually this comet is so far away that it would take a long time before any of it got here. You can't see it with the naked eye, and can barely see it with smaller telescopes from what I've heard. They were saying on the news last night that this is the perfect mission for us to learn what comets are made of so that we can learn how to stop them when they ARE coming towards earth.

I do believe that the mission is as they say it is, to learn about what makes the comet up and everything. However if it was a secret mission to divert the comet it would have to be done asap and when it's as far away as possible.. This is due to our puny weapons/techniques only making a minute difference to the trajectory.

I know that it's a mission to determine what makes it up. What they said on the news is that one of the side effects of the mission is that once they know what it's made up of, they will have an idea of how they could divert one or destroy one if it was heading towards us. If it's made up of ice mostly, it would be a lot easier to destroy one closer. If it's made up of something harder, then yeah, we'd have to develop something to hit it a lot farther away.

[edit on 3-7-2005 by Zaphod58]

Here's a great site for world timezones so you can all figure out the right time to watch it live.

www.timeticker.com...

"The impact is expected to take place at 1:52 a.m. EDT (0552 GMT) on July 4."

Don't forget to adjust for daylight saving time in your zone!

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
Here's a great site for world timezones so you can all figure out the right time to watch it live.

www.timeticker.com...

"The impact is expected to take place at 1:52 a.m. EDT (0552 GMT) on July 4."

There is a much easier way then that to figure out impact time just where you are is use this link. It has a countdown clock showing hours to impact

Shows 16 hours and 52 minutes for me right now.

www.space.com...

*laugh* I hadn't heard about this part of the mission before.
www.space.com...

Deep Impact's mission control received confirmation that the Impactor had separated from the Flyby mothership at 2:07 a.m. EDT (0606 GMT).


"It went like clockwork. Very good, we're very excited. Deep Impact project manager Rick Grammier, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) here, told reporters. The systems were all nominal and we were within half a kilometer of our target point before release and the release went very well."

Yahoo news

[edit on 7/3/2005 by shots]

It's thoughtful of NASA to hand us the event live, but the quality isn't that great.

[edit on 7/3/2005 by Lifeadventurer]

Originally posted by Lifeadventurer
It's thoughtful of NASA to hand us the event live, but the quality isn't that great.

[edit on 7/3/2005 by Lifeadventurer]

What to you expect from millions of miles away? Cable quality? Once the data is enhanced I am sure the final quality will be much better then the live data is, but something is better then nothing.

For those of us with satellite, in particular Dish network, I thought I read somewhere that there would be live coverage. Can someone confirm this? Is it supposed to be live coverage of the impact or of press conferences? I almost missed this whole thread. I'm glad I spotted it.

Dish network broadcasts the NASA channel on channel 213 I believe.

[edit on 3-7-2005 by orionthehunter]

The NASA channel is carrying live feed supposedly, this will presumably be available to satellite customers as well as internet users via streaming video.

Next time I think they should attempt to re-create the events that led to the formation of our moon. They should impact two planet-sized bodies and record the results.

I mean, hell, if we're going to host demolition derbies in God's playground, we might as well go whole-hog, no?

Anybody think maybe the impactor should have been bigger? Maybe build it in space next time to avoid the 10k dollars per pound nonsense of launching test packages.

Yep, NASA TV will be broadcasting live from 11:30 pm EDT on.

July 3, Sunday

11:30 p.m. – 3:30 a.m. (July 4) – Deep Impact Commentary (Expected time of impact: 1:52 a.m.)

July 4, Monday
4 a.m. – 5 a.m. – Deep Impact Post-Impact Press Conference - JPL (Interactive Media Briefing)
7 a.m. – 10 a.m. – Deep Impact Live Interviews - JPL (One-Way Media Interviews)

3 hrs and 25 min until collision...

Will this be visible from the ground? I live in Toronto, Canada - So which direction should I be looking?

[edit on 7-3-2005 by websurfer]

According to the World Clock, Toronto is in the Eastern time zone. So that would be 11:30 pm as well, or 2:30 am Greenwich Mean Time.

Thanks for the quick reply. Will it be visible from the ground?

I believe 11:30 EDT is Eastern Daylight Savings Time. Using Google you can type define edt or any other term and it will define it. My current time as I post this is 10:29 EDT so the show on NASA will start in a little over an hour. Impact in just a little over 200 minutes from now if I counted correctly.

It will only be visible by telescope. I'm not sure what size is the smallest it can be seen by, or where exactly to look though.

Anyone notice this facet of the story?

www.space.com...

That creeps me out a little, to be honest. Smells like sacrifice...

Wierd huh?