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Thousands pack Hawaiian beach to view impact

HONOLULU - The hush of hundreds of people crowded onto Waikiki Beach gradually gave way to cheers and whistles as they realized what they had just witnessed. A space probe millions of miles away successfully slammed into a speeding comet half the size of Manhattan.

The open-air movie screen on Hawaii's famed beach is usually reserved for Hollywood films, but Sunday night featured one of the world's most spectacular preshows with images of an 820-pound copper probe hurtling 83-million miles from Earth.

More than 10,000 people showed up for the NASA mission dubbed "Deep Impact." Viewers later watched the sci-fi film The Dish .

Amy Rustan, one of the sky watchers, spotted a red streak that lasted about five seconds in the southwestern sky around the time of impact. The probe hit the Tempel 1 comet just before 11 p.m. PDT, according to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"I feel pretty fortunate," said Rustan, 19, who said her younger brother now wants to become a NASA scientist.

While the mission was a success, some said they had expected to see a bit more detail in the NASA feed than the black and white stills flashed on the screen.

"You know we see the movies a lot. You kind of see a lot of animation and a lot of effects. Sometimes that's what you think you're going to end up seeing," said Kili Namau'u, 48.

On the Big Island of Hawaii, a collective "Wow!" went up from hundreds of people at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Waimea, home to telescopes atop Mauna Kea that monitored the event. The action unfolded on three large screens, one showing a live feed.

"It's a pretty boring picture right now," said Fred Chaffee, the observatory's director, referring to a small white starburst in the middle of a dark blue sky. "But for all of us in science, this is an extraordinary night."

However, 12-year-old Brad Bordessa was pretty impressed.

"That was awesome. We got to see some green flashes and it was really cool," he said.

At the Waikiki screen, Bob Joseph, faculty chair at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, commended NASA scientists' achievement.

"Nobody has ever done an experiment like this ever in the history of the world," he said.

Brian Spears, 19, an anthropology student and Star Trek fan from San Bernardino, Calif., called the event "really a key point in our whole lives. We might find out the origins of how we came along."

[Last modified July 5, 2005, 01:34:07]