Free Republic

On December 18, the Hubble Space Telescope slewed to Comet ISON’s expected position and found nothing down to the incredibly faint magnitude of 25. According to astronomer Hal Weaver, who planned the ISON search, that limit implies any remaining fragments would have to be smaller than about 500 feet (160 meters) in diameter.

ISON UPDATE/Large Debris Moving Fast. Published on Dec 4, 2013 Ison Update. Solar and Quake Links http://www.BPearthWatch.ComPaul Begley Show Thursday 11 am - 2 pm Central time. LINK http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.com/web... Ison is a V shaped debris field with objects that are miles wide each..at least 21 large ones..They are moving at 2 million miles per day. Ison is moving away from "Secchi A" at that speed which makes it appear smaller from that camera each hour.. THE ROCKS ARE DARK NOW. They will become darker as they move further from the sun over Earth..They will not become smaller.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — It's all up to Hubble. NASA said Monday that the Hubble Space Telescope is the best bet for figuring out whether Comet ISON disintegrated during its brush with the sun last week. A pair of solar observatories saw something emerge from around the sun following ISON's close approach on Thanksgiving Day. But scientists don't know whether the spot of light was merely the comet's shattered remains or what's left of its icy nucleus. Either way, by now, they say it may be just dust. Over the coming week or two, scientists will keep a lookout for...

COMET ISON LIVES (UPDATED): Cancel the funeral. Comet ISON is back from the dead. Yesterday, Nov. 28th, Comet ISON flew through the sun's atmosphere and appeared to disintegrate before the cameras of several NASA and ESA spacecraft. This prompted reports of the comet's demise. Today, the comet has revived and is rapidly brightening. Click to view a SOHO coronagraph movie of the solar flyby

STOCKHOLM — A comet that gained an earthly following because of its bright tail visible from space was initially declared dead after essentially grazing the sun. Now, there is a silver of hope that Comet ISON may have survived. New images, basically faint smudges on a screen, being analyzed Friday showed a streak of light moving away from the sun that some said could indicate it wasn’t game over just yet. “It certainly appears as if there is an object there that is emitting material,” said Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Basically a dirty...

Explanation: Sungrazing Comet ISON reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, yesterday, November 28, at 18:45 UT. The comet passed just over 1 million kilometers above the solar surface, a distance less than the diameter of the Sun. These two panels follow ISON before (right) and after its close approach, imaged by the LASCO instrument onboard the Sun staring SOHO spacecraft. Overwhelming sunlight is blocked by LASCO's central occulting disk with a white circle indicating the Sun's positon and scale. The bright comet is seen along its path at the bottom of the before panel, but something much fainter...

Comet Ison was severely battered in its encounter with the Sun, and largely destroyed. Telescopes saw the giant ball of ice and dust disappear behind the star, but only a dull streamer emerge. Astronomers continued to search for the object, but it eventually became clear that the much vaunted "Comet of the Century" had gone out with a whimper. Despite its great size, Ison was probably torn apart in the immense heat and tidal forces so close to the Sun.

NASA will hold a live Google+ hangout on Thursday (Nov. 28) to webcast the solar passage of Comet ISON as it whips around the sun. The webcast will begin at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) and last until 3:30 p.m. EST (2030 GMT). You will be able to watch the webcast live in the window below at the start time. LATEST STORY: Comet ISON Makes Thanksgiving Day Sun Flyby Today: Watch It Live Online

(snip) Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) is nearing the climax...(snip) What will emerge after perihelion into the December dawn? A naked-eye marvel, a binocular-only target for amateur astronomers with good charts, or nothing at all? Maybe the latter, a new report this morning suggests. Michal Drahus posts: (snip)We observe consistent, rapid fading of the molecular emission lines between Nov. 21 and Nov. 25 by at least a factor of 20 (likely more). This may indicate that the nucleus is now at best marginally active or that... it no longer exists. (snip) I am afraid that there is rather "little hope" for...

Experts gives Comet ISON only a 30 percent chance of surviving its crucial Thanksgiving Day encounter with the sun. Or maybe 40 percent. Whatever the odds, scientists say what some have called the "comet of the century" has already lived up to their expectations. But will it live up to yours? We should find out on Thursday, during a series of webcasts you can tune into while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner. You won't be able to see the comet flaring in the sky on Thursday. Instead, leave the comet-watching job to NASA's sun-watching probes, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the...

Professional astronomers are eagerly awaiting the comet's much-anticipated brush with the sun, expected for Thanksgiving Day. The promising Comet ISON's close pass by the sun this week has amateur astronomers on the edge of their seats, but professional scientists are anticipating the celestial encounter with perhaps even greater relish. Comet ISON is set to skim just 730,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) above the surface of the sun on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28). The comet has brightened considerably as it has zoomed closer and closer to the sun in recent weeks, thrilling stargazers who have captured amazing photos of ISON and...

ISON and New Quake Update. ( 6:21 ) Multiple Nuclei in the Coma. At 4 minutes 43 seconds into this video, the author talks about an old comet strike on earth. This whole video is well worth your time and talks about Comet Ison as of about 1:00 pm Sunday Afternoon, Nov 17, 2013. RELATED LINK Giant Crater Found: Tied to Worst Mass Extinction Ever, by Robert Roy Britt, Senior Science Writer (Space.com), June 01, 2006

ISON May Be Starting to Disintergrate. ( 3:32 ) Latest Images, http://spaceweathergallery.com/index.php?title=comet Solar,Comet and Quake Links, http://www.bpearthwatch.com

ISON is in an Outburst Now. The Hidden Code This is the quote from the 12 minute 35 second video that BPEarthWatch posted on YouTube.com:"God talks to our DNA." This quote comes from the 3 minute 14 second to the 3 minute 18 seconds part of that video.BPEarthWatch has a lot of information in this video and information that, I believe, should be discussed. He took 200 or 300 pages of information and tried to boil it down to this video and he's talking about ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) Waves and the Earth's Resonance Frequency of 7.8 Hz or...

Explanation: In order top to bottom this celestial snapshot features Comet ISON, planet Mars, and Regulus, alpha star of the constellation Leo, in the same frame. The scene spans about 2 degrees near the eastern horizon in early morning skies of October 15. Closest of the three, the much heralded Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) is by far the faintest at 14 light-minutes (1.7 AU) away. Mars is only slightly farther from our fair planet. About 16.5 light minutes (2 AU) away its normal ruddy color is washed out in the exposure. Regulus outshines both comet and planet from a distance...

Explanation: How impressive will Comet ISON become? No one is sure, but unfortunately, as the comet approaches the inner Solar System, it is brightening more slowly than many early predictions. Pictured above, Comet ISON is seen about two weeks ago as it continued to develop a tail. Last week the comet passed relatively close to Mars, and was directly imaged by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. When Comet ISON dives to within a few solar radii of the Sun's surface in late November, it may become brighter than the Moon and sport a long and flowing tail -- or it may...

Sunlight beating down on the comet’s nucleus (core) vaporizes dust-impregnated ice to form a cloud or coma, a temporary atmosphere of water vapor, dust, carbon dioxide, ammonia and other gases. Once liberated , the tenuous haze of comet stuff rapidly expands into a huge spherical cloud centered on the nucleus. Comas are typically hundreds of thousands of miles across but are so rarified you could wave your hand through one and not feel a thing. The Great Comet of 1811 sported one some 864,000 miles (1.4 million km) across, nearly the same diameter as the sun! Among the materials released...

A comet that could put on a dazzling show when it zooms through the inner solar system later this year is already blasting out huge amounts of gas and dust, new observations by a NASA spacecraft show. ... The comet, which is about 3 miles (5 km) wide, is cruising toward a close encounter with the sun on Nov. 28, when it will skim just 724,000 miles (1.16 million km) above the solar surface. ISON could blaze up dramatically around this time, perhaps shining as brightly as the full moon in the sky, researchers say. But there's no guarantee that...

About 10,000 years ago, Comet ISON left our solar system's distant shell, a region known as the Oort cloud, and began streaking toward the sun. This November, the icy wanderer will reach the climax of its journey, potentially providing a stunning skywatching show here on Earth. Comet ISON was discovered just last September by two Russian amateur astronomers. Scientists have since recognized ISON as a possible "comet of the century," but to live up to its promise, it will have to survive its dangerous perihelion, or closest approach to the sun. ISON is what's known as a sungrazing comet. These...

Explanation: Two impressive comets will both reach their peak brightness during the next two weeks. Taking advantage of a rare imaging opportunity, both of these comets were captured in the sky together last week over the Atacama desert in South America. Comet C/2012 F6 (Lemmon), visible on the upper left of the above image, is sporting a long tail dominated by glowing green ions. Comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS), visible near the horizon on the lower right, is showing a bright tail dominated by dust reflecting sunlight. The tails of both comets point approximately toward the recently set Sun. Comet Lemmon...