Fergie's Tech Blog

On Target: NASA Rocket Slams Into Comet

An AP newswire report, via ABC Technology News:

It sounded like science fiction NASA scientists used a space probe to chase down a speeding comet 83 million miles away and slammed it into the frozen ball of dirty ice and debris in a mission to learn how the solar system was formed.

The unmanned probe of the Deep Impact mission collided with Tempel 1, a pickle-shaped comet half the size of Manhattan, late Sunday as thousands of people across the country fixed their eyes to the southwestern sky for a glimpse.

The impact at 10:52 p.m. PDT was cause for celebration not only to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, but also for the more than 10,000 people camped out at Hawaii's Waikiki Beach to watch it on a giant movie screen.

posted by Fergie @ 7/04/2005 08:10:00 AM