- CAPTION: This is a sequence of images from the hi-res
Deep Impact flyby camera. They show jets emanating from two centers. The
color substitution images on the right show more clearly the relative brilliance
distribution in the grey-scale images. They show the presence of two bright
centers. The presence of more than one crater was predicted by the electrical
model of comets.
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- Though many details remain to be determined, enough data
is now in hand to offer a preliminary assessment of our predictions on
Deep Impact. (See predictions here)
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- In our Picture of the Day posted prior to Deep Impact
we registered the most detailed predictions of any group in anticipation
of the event. For their part, NASA investigators made no predictions. Nor
can we find in NASA's subsequent comments any acknowledgement that an independent
group had successfully anticipated the greatest surprises of the encounter.
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- In view of this situation, we consider it essential that
the remaining data analysis by NASA not be permitted to lag so far behind
the event that no one will notice what has occurred. Nor will it be helpful
if the data find their way into the public domain as isolated fragments
of technical minutiae.
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- Therefore, to maintain the integrity of the most fundamental
questions we offer the following status report.
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- MISSING WATER. Proponents of the electric model predicted
that Deep Impact would reveal insufficient water to support the popular
ideas about comets. Now we know the ejected material was largely -- perhaps
entirely -- dust and vaporized rock. (See The
Missing Water of Comet Tempel 1)
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- SUBSURFACE COMPOSITION. We said that the "impact/electrical
discharge will not reveal 'primordial dirty ice', but the same composition
as the surface". It is now known that the presence of volatiles in
the coma immediately after impact did not change, with the exception of
changes relating to charge exchange between the coma and the solar wind
(see below).
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- HIGH-ENERGY EXPLOSION. Wallace Thornhill claimed that
the energy of the "impact" would be greater than expected from
impact studies, because of electrical discharge. When the predicted event
occurred, it left every NASA investigator stunned. (See The
Meaning of Deep Impact)
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- ADVANCE FLASH. Thornhill predicted that a visible discharge
between the nucleus and impactor would be likely prior to the impactor's
contact with the surface. At least two flashes are now known to have occurred,
though (for obvious reasons) no one on NASA's investigative team had anticipated
this. (See Deep
Impact and Shoemaker-Levy 9)
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- EXPLOSION TEMPERATURES. Though we've found nothing from
NASA relating to the temperatures of the explosion, we said that the discharge
would be "hotter than can be explained by mechanical impact. If temperature
measurements are made with sufficient resolution, they will be much higher
than expected from impact heating". On this one we are confident as
ever.
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- EXPLOSION RADIANCE. Within minutes of the impact, the
coma of Tempel 1 was overtaken by a blast of light so great that it saturated
the camera's detectors. NASA spokesmen called this "one of the great
surprises" of Deep Impact. The radiance was not expected under the
model in use. (See "Fine Dust" below).
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- SPEED OF TRANSPORT. Electrical theorists suggest that
NASA carefully review the rate at which ejecta filled the coma. Could kinetic
effects (the effects of physical impact alone) have generated such speeds?
Acceleration of negatively charged material is a predictable effect of
electric discharge.
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- SYSTEM FAILURE. Our prediction was: "Electrical
stress may short out the electronics on board the impactor before impact".
The system did indeed fail a few seconds before impact, and data should
be reviewed to look for indications of electrical breakdown.
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- MULTIPLE CRATERS. We said, "If the energy is distributed
over several flashes, more than one crater on the comet nucleus could result
-- in addition to any impact crater". Unfortunately, NASA did not
anticipate the volume of dust removed by the explosion, which may have
made it impossible for even the best enhancement technology to see though
the ejecta. However, by tracing rays back to their source we noted the
appearance of two ejecta centers immediately after the impact. (See picture
above.)
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- CRATER SIZE. We said, "The impact/electrical discharge
will be into rock, not loosely consolidated ice and dust. The impact crater
will be smaller than expected". The occlusion of the impact site by
the unexpected dust cloud leaves this question of crater size unanswered.
(Some NASA investigators have suggested that the impact did not reach a
deep level, but so far the pronouncements on the subject are quite contradictory
because they're trying to explain things they did not expect).
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- X-RAYS. We suggested that X-rays would accompany discharges
to the projectile, "exceeding any reasonable model for X-ray production
through the mechanics of impact. The intensity curve will be that of a
lightning bolt (sudden onset, exponential decline) and may well include
more than one peak". So far there has been no indication that any
instrument based near or on Earth had the temporal or spatial resolution
to decide this issue.
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- CREATION OF WATER IN THE COMA. The electric model suggests
that negatively charged oxygen from silicates and other metallic oxides
on the nucleus (a negatively charged object) reacts electrically with the
positively charged hydrogen ions of the solar wind to create OH. Thus,
readings of the relative abundance of OH should drop in the immediate wake
of impact, while in the days after the impact abundances of OH should rise.
Though this is inconceivable under the standard model, preliminary data
released does suggest this pattern.
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- X-RAYS FROM COMA. Thornhill contends that the electrical
transaction between the coma and the solar wind creates the surprising
X-rays emanating from cometary comas. Therefore, we should expect that
in the days following the impact the x-ray curve will tend to follow that
of OH production.
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- ELECTROSTATIC CLEANING AND DEPOSITION. In our Pictures
of the Day we have noted evidence of both electrostatic cleaning and electrostatic
implantation in space. We are confident that both processes occur on the
nucleus of Tempel 1. Some of the material cleaned from the surface electrostatically
will be accelerated into space. Other portions of the material, now positively
charged, will be electrostatically drawn to the surface.
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- COLLIMATED JETS. While the electric theorists identify
Tempel 1 as a low voltage comet, enhanced pictures should show clearly
visible jets retaining their coherence over distances that cannot be maintained
by neutral gases in the vacuum of space. All evidence provided to this
point confirms the expectation.
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- FINE DUST. Both the volume of dust and its extraordinarily
fine texture have created mysteries for cometologists. The ejected dust
appears to be as fine as talcum powder. In no sense was this expected.
But it is characteristic of "cathode sputtering", a process used
industrially to create super-fine deposits or coatings from cathode materials.
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- SURFACE GEOLOGY. We not only predicted the sharply defined
relief, but the specific features. "The model predicts a sculpted
surface, distinguished by sharply defined craters, valleys, mesas, and
ridges -- the opposite of the softened relief expected of a sublimating
'dirty snowball'".
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- SURFACE ARCING. We had seen very small white spots on
photographs of comet Wild 2, and interpreted them as electrical arcs in
the form of coronal discharges. The highest resolution photographs of Tempel
1, taken by the impactor, show numerous featureless patches of white-out,
most located where the electrical hypothesis would put them -- on the rims
of craters and on the wall of cliffs rising above flat valley floors. (See
Deep Impact -- The Smoking Guns, http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050708smoking.htm)
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- This single feature, we believe, provides the "smoking
guns" we have waited for. Since their initial suggestion that the
patches could be highly reflective spots on the surface, we've heard no
further comment from NASA on the subject. The signature of electric arcing
should be clearly evident in the full stream of data now being analyzed.
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- Photo credit: NASA/JPL
- Image manipulation: Carl Smith
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