Posted on 11/18/2013 7:07:30 PM PST by BenLurkin
Comet ISON could break up into itty-bitty pieces long before it gets closer to the Sun, selfishly denying us all the opportunity to see it shine brightly in the night sky.
The comet is currently visible in the predawn sky, but it may not be there for long if astroboffins from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the Astronomical Institute at Ludwig Maximilian University are right.
In a post on the International Astronomical Union's Comets and Asteroids Facebook page, the scientists reported spotting "wings" coming from the comet, which may suggest that the nucleus has broken up.
"The coma wings suggest the presence of two or more sub-nuclei with individual expanding atmospheres in the overall cometary coma and may indicate nucleus splitting in the comet," they said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
The Sixth Seal—Terror [Revelation 6]
12 I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. 14 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16 and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
I will bet anyone a million dollars that it wont hit the earth
(try to collect if it does :P )
You might want to qualify that statement. The earth will fly right through its debris trail this January. We most certainly will hit bits of ISON.
You know about Erath? Are you one of the chosen ones? Did they probe you too when they abducted you? Were they gay aliens?
She’s dead Jim!
Well, mebbe. (Sulking) They wuz awful durn happy about the whole thing.
Hope thems be little bits, little itsy bitsy bits...............Just saying :)
Lol, yeah... likely just dust and small bits; a time to enjoy increased meteorites, like that green one you saw a while back! ;)
Still wonder about that one, since a tree blocked my view at the end, don't know if it was a *skimmer* or burnt up total.
Did put on a little show however.
Anybody now how mulitple pieces will act when ISON whips around the sun? Doesn’t this greatly increase the odds of impact?
I ain’t paying for flying through the tail.
No runth, no hith, and no Earath.
There could be an extremely slight possibility we could get showered with some debris on exit. The breakup would have to be violent enough that pieces would be launched with enough velocity (thousands of mile per hour) on a highly unlikely earth intercepting trajectory, to cover about 30 million miles in about 30 days or so. Those would be the most dangerous though. Individual debris would be much larger than anything we would likely encounter in the tail debris (unless there are trailing elements) and moving much faster, about 250,000 mph! :-)
LOL, K... Jest checking... ;)
That’s right. Rebuild comet ISON. With lots and lots of tax dollars.
“We don’t choose to do such things because they are easy...but because they are hard.”
I can’t see how the trajectory of the fragments would be much different from that projected for the object now.
But there are a lot smarter FReepers than me who could probably do the math and come up with a better answer.
ISON is soon to be known as ISOFF :)
Isn’t ISON on an elliptical orbit, and due to enter the Sun’s gravitational field, causing it to whip back out into space in roughly the same direction it came from? If so, wouldn’t this gravitational whip action be unpredictable with a comet that was in pieces?
Excellent!
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