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Renewed excitement on impact

A brilliant impact sparked a flash of light some 83-million miles from Earth last week that should help illuminate the mysteries of the solar system and renew interest in space exploration. Scientists launched the Deep Impact probe almost six months ago, seeking a better understanding of the solar system's formation and clues that could predict the outcome if a comet collides with Earth. After traveling 173 days and 268-million miles, the impactor - about the size of a living room coffee table - hit its target, the Tempel 1 comet.

While the collision isn't expected to throw the comet too far off its orbit, the $333-million mission is setting scientists on the path of groundbreaking discovery. Never before had astronomers probed the surface of a comet - bodies of ice, gas, dust and debris that orbit the sun and were formed 4.5-billion years ago. Scientists around the globe, already spellbound by the precision of the explosion, are even more energized by the initial findings.

Since man first landed on the moon, the nation has rarely been as swept up in the excitement of space exploration. Within the 24-hour time period spanning the July 4 explosion, more than 1-billion people logged onto NASA's Web site, eager to feed their curiosity about the final frontier.

It's a new era of space discovery, one that combines human and robotic exploration to shed light on the mysteries of the universe. The launch of the Discovery space shuttle is set for this week, marking NASA's first space flight since the Columbia tragedy of 2003. The mission, while tempered by safety concerns, will expand upon the foray into space exploration.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin predicts that during the life span of a baby born on the day of the Deep Impact collision, humans will have colonized the moon and Mars, begun mining giant asteroids and invented telescopes so advanced they will map the details of faraway planets. "Spaceflight is a continuation of the ancient human imperative to explore, discover and understand; to settle new territory and to develop new ways to live and work," Griffin wrote in a piece for USA Today .

Explore. Discover. Understand. That is NASA's motto. With a continued commitment and clear direction for space exploration, the possibilities are endless.

[Last modified July 11, 2005, 01:00:09]