‘Deep Impact’s’ Position Proves NASA Knew About Comet ISON in 2005
Posted: November 20, 2013 in Comet/Asteroid, Government Conspiracy, NASA, News Articles, Survival, The Sun, VideoTags: Comet ISON, dahboo7, end times, nasa, news, November 28 2013, solar flares, space, survival, the sun, video
ARTICLE from the National Geographic, dated September 20th, 2013:
NASA Declares End to Deep Impact Comet Mission
Communication cutoff leads to loss of comet hunter, say space officials.
NASA scientists ended the Deep Impact comet hunter mission on September 20.
Dan VerganoNational Geographic
Published September 20, 2013
NASA officials declared the Deep Impact mission lost on Friday, after a computer glitch doomed the comet-smashing spacecraft.
Launched in 2005, the spacecraft memorably smashed a copper-jacketed probe into the comet Tempel 1
at 22,800 miles an hour (36,700 kilometers an hour) on July 4 of that
year. It then flew through the debris cloud to capture the resultant
fireworks, the first close inspection of a comet’s interior. (See “‘Deep Impact’ Comet Revealed by NASA Flyby.”)
The $267 million spacecraft later flew by the comet Hartley 2 in 2010, and this year it captured images of comet ISON, which is headed toward a close encounter with the sun in November.
But now the Deep Impact spacecraft appears to be lost.
“The mission revolutionized the way we think about comets
and raised all sorts of questions we still have to answer,” said chief
mission scientist Mike A’Hearn of the University of Maryland.
Mission controllers last radioed the spacecraft on August 8, after which communications were lost,
according to a statement from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California. After a month of attempts to restore
communications through the NASA Deep Space Network, the controllers have
declared the mission “lost,” concluding that a computer glitch likely doomed the spacecraft.
“Basically, it was a Y2K problem, where
some software didn’t roll over the calendar date correctly,” said
A’Hearn. The spacecraft’s fault-protection software (ironically enough)
would have misread any date after August 11, 2013, he said, triggering
an endless series of computer reboots aboard Deep Impact.
Despite repeated attempts to send corrective commands, the spacecraft likely lost its bearings and failed to point its solar cell wings toward the sun, A’Hearn said, causing a catastrophic loss of power.
Comets Now Better Understood
Deep Impact had been enjoying a surprisingly long second
act after its 2005 rendezvous with Tempel 1 and the two years of data
analysis that followed the smash-up. “I considered everything afterwards
as gravy,” A’Hearn said.
Before Deep Impact, comet scientists had a relatively
simple picture of comets as crusty, dirty snowballs from beyond Pluto.
After the 2005 encounter, A’Hearn said, scientists understood that space
weather reshaped comet surfaces, that comet tails contain dry ice and
water, and that comets originated close to the sun at the dawn of the
solar system.
The findings played into scientific discussions of how
water delivered by comet impacts may have filled the oceans of the early
Earth more than four billion years ago.
“I’m a little biased, but I think the taxpayers saw very good value from this mission,” A’Hearn says.
SOURCE LINK: http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2013/09/130920-deep-impact-ends-comet-mission-nasa-jpl/
“Keep your nose to the ground and your eyes to the sky.” INDEED!!!!
As always, what is it that Never A Straight Answer
are not revealing to us?! Ison smashing into the sun causing massive
solar flares wrecking untold electrical catastrophe here on Earth?!
Guess we’ll have to wait and see!!
JP
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