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On July 4, NASA’s “Deep Impact” probe will perform an intriguing experiment with Comet Tempel 1: It will hurl a 820-pound weight into the surface of the comet, then stand back and observe what weird stuff comes flying off the surface. Cool enough, but what I particularly like is that NASA is following its recent trend of creating incredibly cool animations for its space missions. It’s put a little movie online illustrating what the Deep Impact smashfest would look like if you were out there in space watching it. As they note:
The resulting collision between comet and impactor will likely punch a crater, anywhere from the size of a Sport Utility Vehicle to a football stadium, into the comet’s nucleus. Before, during and after impact, the flyby spacecraft wil be observing events from a safe distance, imaging the crater formation and resulting ejecta.
The video has a gorgeously eerie beauty: The backlighting on the comet and the ejecta creates a creepy sense of isolation and distance — you really feel like you’re floating millions of miles out in space, with the sun only a distance influence.
It makes me wish that NASA would produce some video games using this aesthetic. Imagine a little game where you could fly the mission in different ways: Increasing or decreasing the mass of the impact-weight, speeding up the pace at which it hits the comet, or tweaking its angle. Then you could record whatever cool stuff happens as a little video to post online. It’d be like The Sims, except with astrophysics!
(Thanks to Slashdot for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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