Comets are all the time threatening the Earth with devastating collisions. In 1996, Comet Hyakutake came so close that its tail spread nearly across the sky; it missed by about 9 million miles. Shoemaker-Levy 9 didn't just threaten to crash into a planet, it actually did so. Pow! Pow! Pow! the fragments of this comet hit Jupiter, giving the planet a case of the measles for a few days.
So now we are getting revenge against the comets. NASA decided that it would go to the comet and crash into it first. The comet is Comet Tempel 1, a moderately faint periodic comet. The NASA probe will release a projectile that will crash into the comet, causing a big crater there, and throwing all sorts of comet stuff into space, where the rest of the probe can relay information of it back to Earth. By that method, we may find out what is in the comet and how it got there.
Will we see it in our skies? We certainly will. But not here on the East Coast, as the comet will be below the horizon at that time. But people in the West, like in California, will be able to see it. It should brighten by several magnitudes when the smash occurs. Here in Virginia, we will have a skywatch on Sunday evening, and then there will be a live coverage of the smash in the Science Museum about 2 in the morning. It should brighten from a faint object in a moderately large telescope to a object bright enough to be seen without a telescope. If you are on the West Coast, definitely look for this comet and watch it brighten before your eyes.
2005/06/28
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