Raving Loonie wrote:
Double-A wrote:
G=EMC^2 Glazier wrote:
As I'm typing I'm looking at pictures I have of both,and they both look
like Mars moons. Mars moons are asteroids. Tempel 1 does not look like
a dirty snow ball. Its potato shaped,has dusty creators,and made of
rock. Structure wise it is hard for me to look at Tempel 1 and say its a
comet. Its nice to have close up pictures of both Deep impact probe of
Tempel 1,and Gaspra photographed by the Galileo spacecraft as it went by
in 1991. This has bothered me a lot. Can I say a rock asteroid and a
rock comet are physically the same? Bert


Analysis: Deep Impact Comet All Fluff
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 06 September 2005
01:05 pm ET


A thorough analysis confirms that and other preliminary conclusions
about the 7-mile-long icy world, which appears to be rather fluffy.

Weak and porous

The outer tens of meters (yards) of the comet is less strong than a
snow bank, said Deep Impact's Principal Investigator Michael A'Hearn,
an astronomer at the University of Maryland.

Still, the object's gravity holds it all together.
So?

A " Dust Bunny " is less strong than a snow bank, too ...

A'Hearn explained that when a comet plummets through the atmosphere, it
creates a shock wave in front. Such a shock wave, not a comet's
composition, is the primary factor that allows a large comet to make it
to the surface intact, delivering water and organics.
Cough, cough ...

I wonder how A'Hearn knows this?

Cordially,

RL


Interesting to think of a snow bank type comet "avalanching" towards
Earth!

Do you suppose that's what happened over Siberia?

Double-A