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Originally Posted by banquo's_bumble_puppy
Just my thought. Could there be a secondary motive for this mission. Will this tell us anything about diverting comets that could potentially hit the Earth?
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Well, why don't we consult the mission objectives in:
DEEP IMPACT: A LARGE-SCALE ACTIVE EXPERIMENT ON A COMETARY NUCLEUS (PDF, 13.2 megabytes) by A'Hearn, Belton, et al.
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The scientific objectives of the mission, as described in the original proposal and as quoted here from the relevant portion of the Discovery Program Plan, are:
“The Deep Impact mission will fly to and impact a short-period comet understood to have a nuclear radius > 2km (large enough so that it will sustain a crater of cometesimal
size and ensure reliable targeting). The direct intent of the impact is to excavate a crater of approximately 100 meters in diameter and 25 meters in depth. The overall scientific objectives are to:
1. Dramatically improve the knowledge of key properties of a cometary nucleus and, for the first time, assess directly the interior of a cometary nucleus by means of a massive impactor hitting the surface of the nucleus at high velocity.
2. Determine properties of the surface layers such as density, porosity, strength, and composition from the resultant crater and its formation.
3. Study the relationship between the surface layers of a cometary nucleus and the possibly pristine materials of the interior by comparison of the interior of the crater with the pre-impact surface.
4. Improve our understanding of the evolution of cometary nuclei, particularly their approach to dormancy, from the comparison between interior and surface.”
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Nope. I don't see anything there about practicing for comet diversion. Why would they leave that out if it were a mission objective? You'd think they could have sold the mission more easily if there were more objectives in the proposal to be accomplished without additional cost.