A different kind of firewords for July 4th

In the midst of your various celebrations on the 4th of July, don't forget to be keeping an eye on the night skies for something a bit further away. NASA will be smashing the probe Deep Impact into comet Tempel 1 a little less than three days from the time of this writing, at approximately one a.m eastern time, Monday, July 5. (Or July 4th evening for you West Coast folks.) There is an exact countdown clock on the Space.Com Deep Impact page. Also from that page you can view a number of other current and previous news releases on this project, along with several videos and artists' renderings of the comet, the probe, and the impact.

When the big collision happens, it's supposed to blow a stadium sized hole in the surface of the comet. This will give us a peek at some of the material which, in theory, should have been in the deep freeze pretty much since the formation of the solar system. It should be exciting. And if you miss the light show outside (NASA claims we should be able to see it from Earth either with your bare eyes or, at most, a pair of binoculars) there should be news coverage coming in all over the place.

Enjoy!