Headless comet D1 SOHO photographed in evening twilight on Feb. 28. The comet survived its Feb. 19 perihelion passage but soon after crumbled apart to form a cloud of glowing dust. Credit: Michael Jaeger
Posted on 03/02/2015 3:48:53 PM PST by BenLurkin
On Wednesday evening Feb. 25, Justin Cowart, a geologist and amateur astronomer from Alto Pass, Illinois figured he’d have a crack at it. Cowart didn’t have much hope after hearing the news that the comet may very well have crumbled apart after the manner of that most famous of disintegrators, Comet ISON . ISON fragmented even before perihelion in late 2013, leaving behind an expanding cloud of exceedingly faint dust. Cowart set up a camera and tracking mount anyway and waited for clearing in the west after sunset. Comet D1 SOHO was located some 10° above the horizon near the star Theta Piscium in a bright sky. Justin aimed and shot:
“I was able to see stars down to about 6th magnitude in the raw frames, but no comet,” wrote Cowart. “I decided to stack my frames and see if I could do some heavy processing to bring out a faint fuzzy. To my surprise, when DeepSkyStacker spit out the final image I could see a faint cloud near Theta Picsium, right about where the comet expected to be!”
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Kinda looks like the Republican Party after November...
Just Damn.
ISIS don’t care what head they cut off...
BUT, what are the chances that as it gets further away from the Sun, that it will coalesce and reform ?
Don’t be silly, the comet didn’t expect to be there...
I hate it when the carbonation goes out. Things go flat.
TO #4. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
Once a comet breaks up, that’s it. Each piece goes along the same tract but they never catch up and reunite as a single body (not enough magnetism or cocooning materials).
I saw the atmospheric holes/marks that the major pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy left in Jupiter. They went in, one piece after another (and must have done some real damage/major impact) on its surface because of the large dark areas (of gases/fragments/surface debris),that rose into the upper atmosphere from these crash-sites.
One day we might get a helluva meteor shower or even a ghost comet debris cloud, but not a recreation of the original body.
ghost comet debris cloud...
does that come after a zombie apocalypse?
;-)
I work in DC. Just looking at Congress and the White House gives proof that the Zombie Apocalypse is already here.
SPACE GHOST!
Thanks BenLurkin, extra to APoD.
Before.
"Daddy would have gotten us Uzis"...
Ha ha! Before, okay! Thanks for the info!
That sure is true. Man, look at them!
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