NASA plans to stage the collision of Comet Tempel 1 and the Deep Impact probe on July 4, and in order to put the projectile in the right place for the encounter, Deep Impact must be launched by Jan. 28.
The earliest NASA plans to attempt the launch is at 1:48 p.m. EST on Wednesday from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Scientists don't know exactly what will happen when the comet barrels into Deep Impact's 820-pound copper-tipped projectile at about 23,000 mph. The speeding comet is expected to be 82 million miles from Earth when the collision occurs.
They expect, however, a giant explosion -- equivalent to the energy released by 4 1/2 tons of dynamite -- and a gouge into the comet's surface that could be as big as a football field and as deep as a 14-story building.
While the collision is expected to obliterate the impactor, two telescopes aboard Deep Impact's mother ship will monitor the crash, then fly by the comet for close inspections.
By probing below the comet's surface, scientists hope to learn about the conditions that existed more than 4 billion year ago when the solar system was formed.
Great, lets just run head long into a comet and have a satellite there to act as a rubber-necker. Plus, they don't know what is going to happen, other than a release of energy equivalent to 5 tons of TNT. Oh that's just great. Just like us to go out into space and want to blow shit up. What happens if that sucker's course gets altered into a planetary body? What if it runs into an asteroid that is then sent on a collision course to Earth? What if this is just a test of interceptor technology? People want to know!
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