Feb 2 2006
From The Space Library
NASA’s Deep Impact team of scientists, led by Michael F. A’Hearn of the University of Maryland, reported in the online edition of Science that they had found the first conclusive evidence of water ice on the surface of a comet. Jointly sponsored by NASA’s JPL and the University of Maryland, Deep Impact had crashed a space probe into the comet Tempel 1 on 4 July 2005 and had taken samples of the resulting debris. Through a spectral analysis of data about the comet, which the probe had collected before the crash, the scientists had determined the existence of three patches of ice covering 300,000 square feet (27,871 square meters), approximately 6 percent of Tempel 1’s total surface area. The team concluded that the exposed ice had come from larger reservoirs just below the comet’s surface. While scientists had long known that ice is a component of comets, this report marked the first discovery of ice on a comet’s exterior surface. Scientists speculate that comets might have been the first vector for the delivery of water and carbon-based molecules to Earth, providing the building blocks for life.
Reuters, “Deep Impact Probe Shows Ice on Comet’s Surface,” 2 February 2006; Brown University, “NASA’s ‘Deep Impact’ Team Reports First Evidence of Cometary Ice,” press release, 2 February 2006, http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2005-06/05-072.html (accessed 27 August 2010); Ker Than, “Water Ice Detected on Comet’s Surface,” Space.com, 2 February 2006, http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060202_comet_ice.html (accessed 31 August 2010); see also Jessica M. Sunshine et al., “Exposed Water Ice Deposits on the Surface of Comet 9P/Tempel 1,” Science 311, no. 5766 (10 March 2006): 1453.
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