Posted on 10/25/2007 2:39:29 PM PDT by blam
Comet brightens mysteriously by a factor of a million 22:04 25 October 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee
A comet usually too faint to be seen with the naked eye has brightened by a factor of a million since Tuesday, suggesting its surface may have cracked open and expelled clouds of dust and gas. Astronomers are scrambling to observe the strange object, which is likely to fade in the coming days and weeks.
Comet 17P/Holmes, which orbits the Sun every seven years on a path that takes it from the distance of Jupiter's orbit to about twice that of Earth's, is usually 25,000 times too dim to be seen with the naked eye. But since 23 October, it has brightened by a million times and now resembles a bright yellow star.
"This is equivalent to the planet Saturn suddenly becoming as bright as the Full Moon," David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute in Moffett Field, California, US, wrote in an email newsletter. "I have never before seen anything like it."
Comets do sometimes show extreme changes in brightness. They are thought to occur when the Sun's heat vaporises newly exposed ice on the comet, blasting dust off its surface. Sunlight reflecting off the dust increases the comet's brightness.
Fresh ice
So it is possible that a crack has opened up on the comet's nucleus, which is less than about 3 kilometres across, exposing fresh ice to the Sun.
This is not the first time the comet has been caught brightening. In fact, it had brightened to become faintly visible to the naked eye when it was discovered by an observer named Edwin Holmes in 1892. It faded, then brightened again the following year before returning to obscurity.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.newscientist.com ...
Cosmic warming?
Maybe it’s a million times closer to earth than scientists thought!
Unless they put an “X” on it...maybe it’s something they missed in the past.
Now, I am thinking of the movie “Night of the Comet.” Stock-up on ammo to kill the evil zombies.
I'd better sleep in my metal shed just in case...
Don't want to end up a pile of dust..
It helps if you are in a metal shack with a girl who has teased hair.
we were coming back?
They are coming to pick up Ron Paul.
Planet X exactly. Its coming~!!!!
Fascinating. Couldn’t this have been the kind of thing that caused the Star of Bethlehem to shine when Jesus was born?
IT’S THE SIGNAL!
The Great Conjunction! The Mother-ship calls! We shall all be transported to our advanced beings of light!
Well, if even Mars is undergoing man-made global warming, it stands to reason that comets and asteroids (being smaller and more helpless) will be hardest hit!
Now, to answar the tough questions!
1) Is this Carl Rove playing around with his interstellar electronic devices?;
2) The sun heating up because of Earth’s SUV’s and China’s dog barbeque?;
3) Global Warming on the surface of the comet?;
4) Bush’s fault?
space ping
Or maybe a thousand times closer, given the 1/r^2 dependence of intensity on distance (and neglecting the fact that if it’s closer to the earth, it’s also closer to the sun and therefore more brightly illuminated).
The Man from Planet X. Great movie for its time!
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