Deep Impact, Deep Analysis
The Nasa projectile that slammed into Comet Tempel 1 last year kicked out at least 250,000 tonnes of water.
The figure comes from UK/US scientists on the Swift telescope, one of many observatories called on to study the US space agency’s Deep Impact event.
Swift’s X-ray Telescope (XRT) saw the comet continue to release water for some 13 days after the initial event, with a peak five days on from the collision.
Read the full story, “Impactor ejects mighty water mass” at the BBC.
This suggests an interesting simplification of a potentially quite valuable technique I proposed many years ago.