Deep Impact Comet-Smashing Video 133
DynaSoar writes "Dan Maas is the animation expert who produced NASA's Mars Rover animation which was subsequently used in the PBS Nova episodes 'Mars, Dead or Alive' and 'Welcome to Mars,' the majority of which was done while he was a Cornell student on a summer internship at NASA. His most recent release is NASA's best 'artist's conception' of the Tempel 1 Deep Impact mission. Nobody knows what will happen when 820 pounds of metal slams into the comet with 5 kilotons of force, but whatever happens, Maas's digital precreation is probably way more entertaining than NASA's imagery is likely to be. Two versions of the Deep Impact QuickTime video are available. A couple notes of interest: the original Mars video was produced as a music video, using Lenny Kravitz and Holst as soundtracks. This is available only to K-12 educators. Also, in the interview in the first link, when asked for an inspirational quote, he quotes John Carmack."
Re:We need more missions like this. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What would really suck (Score:4, Informative)
Coral Links Just in case (Score:5, Informative)
Long [nyud.net]
Short [nyud.net]
and what the hell Torrent Too [thedarkcitadel.com]
5 kilotons of force? (Score:2, Informative)
...Largely due to the fact that nobody knows what the hell the phrase "5 kilotons of force" means in an impact situation, even if we forgive the use of tons as a force unit.
Or are we talking about an amount of energy equivalent to that released by 5 kilotons of TNT (probable)? Then say so. This is bad science, people. The kind that gets Ariane rockets blown up.
5 tons (Score:4, Informative)
Re:deep impact? (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, I'm pretty sure we don't have the means currently to deflect a large comet or asteroid like they did in Armageddon or something like that. Perhaps the impact data from this experiment will help us in a similar situation as in the movies sometime in the future.
Re:What would really suck (Score:2, Informative)
KFG
Re:What would really suck (Score:3, Informative)
F=MA is the driving force of the cosmos. This comet isn't going to make a u-turn towards earth because a 800lb projectile hits it.
Why not look at the actual orbit of the comet, vs earths orbit and compute the DV required for the 2 orbits to intersect.
Tempel-1 isn't even a NEA. The orbit doesn't even cross the orbit of the earth.