REAL Fireworks for the Fourth!!

Scientists hope the July 4 collision will gouge a crater in the comet's surface large enough to reveal its pristine core and perhaps yield cosmic clues to the origin of the solar system. NASA's fleet of space-based observatories — including the Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra telescopes — along with an army of ground-based telescopes around the world are expected to record the impact and resulting crater. The big question is: What kind of fireworks can sky-gazers expect to see from Earth? Scientists do not know yet. But if the probe hits the bull's-eye, the impact could temporarily light up the comet as much as 40 times brighter than normal, possibly making it visible to the naked eye in parts of the Western Hemisphere.