News@Nature.com reports that, "Officials have announced that an extra second will be added to 2005, to accommodate a slowing down of the Earth's rotation. The announcement is by no means unprecedented. We have been adding leap seconds to years since the 1970s, but, owing to unpredictable quirks in our planet's rotation, we haven't needed one since 1998. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service in Paris will sneak the extra time in on 31 December 2005, making the countdown to the new year one second longer than some might expect." The extra second was needed as a result of the large earthquake that caused the tsunami in Indonesia. The quake forced a dense mass of the earth's crust downward. Like a spinning figure skater that brings her arms in, the earth began to spin faster as the mass shifted shortening our day by 3 millions of a second.
July 7, 2005
July 4, 2005
Space probe slams into comet
Running as planned, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft released a 360-kilogram (816-pound) impactor probe on July 4th that collided with the comet Tempel 1. The super-fast probe generated an immense flash of light. Meanwhile, on the Deep Impact mothership, camera's fixed on the collision captured images in the light of the collision. Deep Impact scientists theorize the 820-pound impactor was turned to vapor deep below the comet's surface when the two collided at 1:52 am July 4, at a speed of about 10 kilometers per second (6.3 miles per second or 23,000 miles per hour).
The goal of the Deep Impact mission was to provide an in-depth picture of the composition of a comet. Because the materials found on comets have changed very little since the formation of our solar system, mission scientists hope the project will answer basic questions about how the solar system formed.