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M. F. A'Hearn (UMd), M. J. S. Belton (NOAO), Deep Impact Team
The science team for the Deep Impact Discovery Proposal will show first that our knowledge of the relationship between surface material on cometary nuclei and the potentially pristine materia l in the interior is completely indeterminate at present. We will then discuss the only mechanism that we can now implement to study material in the nucleus at depths to which evolutionary effects are predicted to be important. Excavation of a crater using the kinetic energy of an impact, exactly as occurs naturally throughout the solar system, can reach depths that will enable us to discriminate among models for the evolution of cometary nuclei and possibly reach pristine material, depending on which model one accepts. We will briefly describe a proposal that can be implemented to probe to a depth >25m and we will describe the scientific approach to determining nuclear properties.