Posted on 10/08/2019 8:22:09 AM PDT by BenLurkin
C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) this summer provided renewed opportunities to study material left by outgassing. Using data gathered by the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), an international team of astronomers found that 2I/Borisov contains cyanide.
Since comets and asteroids are essentially material left over from the formation of a planetary system, these studies will allow scientists to place constraints on the physical and chemical processes involved in the formation of extrasolar planets. Basically, it's like being able to study extrasolar planets without having to go there physically. Prof. Fitzsimmons told Universe Today, materials from other planetary systems, delivered to our doorstep—or at least to our own solar system. The physical nature gives us clues as to how other planetary systems evolve, and the types of small bodies that may exist there. Measuring their composition allows us to compare what we find with decades of studies of comets and asteroids orbiting the sun."
Fitzsimmons and his colleagues used the 4.2-meter WHT and the Intermediate-dispersion Spectrograph and Imaging System (ISIS) located at the ESO's La Palma Observatory to observe the comet. What they observed was a thin cloud that showed a strong signal from cyanogen gas (CN) – in other words, a toxic vapor that indicated the presence of cyanide.
But before anyone gets to thinking that this could pose a danger to life on Earth, a few caveats are necessary. For starters, based on 2I/Borisov's trajectory, the comet will pass beyond the orbit of Mars. By December 8th, 2019, it will make its closest approach to the sun, reaching under 2 AU in distance (or twice the distance between the sun and Earth).
This means that Earth has no chance of passing through the comet's tail, and therefore will not be getting any cyanide gas in its atmosphere.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
People forget how often cyanide appears naturally in nature. Many pits and seeds have cyanide. Even the wood of the cherry tree contains cyanide as does the cherry fruit itself. There’s even on critter that sprays cyanide as a self defense mechanism (the roly poly or pill bug millipede).
Didn’t some scientist detect cyanogen in the tail of comet Halley in 1910?
***This means that Earth has no chance of passing through the comet’s tail,***
But in 1910,the earth was to pass through the tail of Haley’s Comet, and cyanide gas in the tail was going to wipe out all life on earth and WE WERE ALL GONNA DIE!
Enterprising people began to sell “Comet pills”, and gas masks, and the people bought them up! Some people actually committed suicide rather than die by being gassed.
And like the Coming Ice Age, Hole in the Ozone, and now Glo-Bull Warming scare this too will pass away and some new thing will scare the U-no-Watt out of the young people.
That interstellar object was about to turn State’s Evidence on Hillary!
Cyanide? Let’s exile all congressional Democrats, all antifa, all commies, all pussy-hat wearers to 2I/Borisov.
Nicknamed Jim Jones Comet.
Cyanogen. Not the same thing, but still toxic. There was a panic and gas masks were sold.
Actually they contain amygdalin. Not in the cherry fruit, just the pit.
And I thought my outgassing was silent but deadly. AOC is going to be really pissed.
And it takes a lot of cherry pits to poison you...
Rocket exhaust pollution?
I suspect fowl play.
Chickens?
Hope they didn’t misplace a decimal point.
Comet tails are so rarified that it wouldn’t matter if earth passed right through one that was pure cyanide. There’s not enough of it to harm even the most sensitive creature.
*ping*
Don’t know if it’s cyanide, but the wilted leaves of wild cherry trees will kill cattle.
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