Scientists Hoping to Spear a Comet

Researchers in Arizona have designed a four-foot-long projectile that will be used to penetrate the icy surface of a comet’s nucleus and relay scientific data back to Earth.

The device, shaped like a golf tee, will be shot from an unmanned spacecraft traveling about 90 m.p.h. to penetrate the nucleus of a comet to a depth of about one meter, said University of Arizona astronomer William Boynton.

The instrument package would be carried by NASA’s Comet Fly-by mission in the early 1990s, if Congress approves funding for the project. The spacecraft tentatively is scheduled for launch in 1992 or 1993. It would rendezvous with a comet called Temple II near Jupiter’s orbit, about 400 million miles from Earth.

The information relayed back could help scientists understand how comets and the solar system were formed, they said.

Boynton said a model of the comet penetrator was tested by dropping it from the top of the university’s football stadium into a 55-gallon barrel of ice. That was “a lot of fun,” he said.