Scientists Measure How Deep "Deep Impact" Was, With X-rays

[Bill McBlueState]

Scientists Measure How Deep "Deep Impact" Was, With X-rays

8 July 2005—Here come the X-rays, on cue. Scientists studying the Deep Impact collision using NASA's Swift satellite report that comet Tempel 1 is getting brighter and brighter in X-ray light with each passing day.

The X-rays provide a direct measurement of how much material was kicked up in the impact. This is because the X-rays are created by the newly liberated material lifted into the comet's thin atmosphere and illuminated by the high-energy solar wind from the Sun. The more material liberated, the more X-rays are produced.

...

Based on preliminary X-ray analysis, O'Brien estimates that several tens of thousands of tons of material were released, enough to bury Penn State's football field under 30 feet of comet dust. Observations and analysis are ongoing at the Swift Mission Operations Center at Penn State University as well as in Italy and the United Kingdom.

continued at http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Swift-Deep-Impact.htm

[beam me up scottie]

1. argh !

Can't get the link to work.
Are there any new images ?

ps: LOVE the sig line !

[Bill McBlueState]

2. alternative link

The PSU site wasn't loading for me just now, either. Here's the same story on the Universe Today:

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/deep_impact_in_xrays.html

There's an x-ray image of the comet there, with the really low resolution typical of x-ray astronomy. :)

[beam me up scottie]

3. So Swift is on another

mission and but is able to capture these images ?

***
Swift's "day job" is detecting distant, natural explosions called gamma-ray bursts and creating a map of X-ray sources in the universe. Swift's extraordinary speed and agility enable scientists to follow Tempel 1 day by day to see the full effect from the Deep Impact collision.
***

That's pretty awesome.
I haven't looked at the Hubble pictures of it yet, I'll check those out tonight.

[beam me up scottie]

4. Check out Hubble's view of Deep Impact:

[Bill McBlueState]

5. wow, impressive

I love how Hubble just keeps going, even though it's lasted something like three times its original life expectancy.

And people say government can't do anything right...

[beam me up scottie]

6. My dad and I were outraged

when they announced they were going to let it die before its time.

It's pretty damn obvious that the religious reichwing that bought and paid for control of the white house still feels threatened by science.

Anyone who cannot or will not see the breathtaking beauty in Hubble's images doesn't deserve to have a say in what happens to it.