[meteorite-list] Deep Impact

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Hot Dog, nice flying for the Comet-whacking  team-I''ve been awed by the 
coordinated assault on the big dirty NY snowball,  and I suspect by now I'm just 
as burnt out as the impactor.  Let me add to  the foolish puns: Congratulations 
on the perfect pitch.  What more could  the world get from the USA on July 
4th, 2005?  great Baseball...mmmm:   I got it:  Now setting "a course" of Apple 
Pie!!!  Yes please navigate  pies into Dr. Grammier and Dr. Ahearn, each, a 
precision impacted congratulatory  apple pie-in-the-face impactor for a nice 
celebration!

Buy me some  peanuts and cracker-jack pitch team members like those JPL 
navigators and  navigation designers anytime.  At this point time for a cup of  co
ffee.  Reports are coming in that we can expect something as much as a  3.5 
magnitude decrease [that would be a 25 times increase in "linear  brightness".] 
That would put the comet within the range of a reasonable pair of  binoculars 
under reasonably dark skies tonight.  (And probably a crater in  the range of 
50-60 meters in diameter on the comet)...

One thing that  bugs me...Has NASA developed hyperspace communications and 
not mentioned  that?  The NASA reports have visual confirmation via downloaded 
date of  impact just 5 minutes after the officially confirmed impact at 52 
minutes before  the hour.   The light needs close to 7 minutes 26 seconds to get 
to  JPL.  Was impact really earlier or have I missed something?  Or was  the 
"image showing the tell-tale signs of high-speed impact" actually not a  
mentioned, but rather just an image confirming the trajectory with 100%  probability 
of impact?  This is important for back-yard amateurs to know  who followed the 
event.

NASA said:
"The collision between the coffee  table-sized impactor and city-sized comet 
occurred at 1:52 a.m.  EDT......Official word of the impact came 5 minutes 
after impact. At 1:57 a.m.  EDT, an image from the spacecraft's medium resolution 
camera downlinked to the  computer screens of the mission's science team 
showed the tell-tale signs of a  high-speed impact."

Saludos, Doug