Comet ISON

[Pimander]

so if you are poking fun just add that little tongue guy and i won't bug you...k? 

OK mate, I'll try to make sure it's obvious when I'm fooling around.

i think you just have a case of the new dad jitters...have a few large cups of coffee and  as yoiu really bounce off the walls you'll see the difference 

Jitters?  That's an understatement.

Actually, you're right, I NEED COFFEE.  Just the thought of the smell of some livened me up then.

More hugs 

[zorgon]

Bashar's mate says it is Jesus disguised as a space ship, disguised as a comet.   

Isn't that what Heaven's Gate dude said too?

That didn't go so well for them

[sky otter]

heavens gate ..was what the first reference was too...without giving the name

nobody looked to read it..


yeahh .. i know you said  nobody reads links and i didn't believe you

i do now

[sky otter]

ok.. i found your gloom and doom for this comet...if i wasn't laughing so dang hard i'ld be tossing things at the screen
unreal...this person was really busy to make this one





Published on Oct 14, 2013

Tell me this. They say comets are made of ice and dust right? RIGHT!!! If that's the case,then how did comet ison just turn mars into a comet with a coma???
Coma's are made when comets get near the "SUN". So how did mars turn into a comet with a coma around it?? THERE"S YOUR PROOF, THAT COMET ISON MUST BE NIBIRU!!!

[WarToad]

Published on Oct 14, 2013

Tell me this. They say comets are made of ice and dust right? RIGHT!!! If that's the case,then how did comet ison just turn mars into a comet with a coma???

    ...what?

Coma's are made when comets get near the "SUN". So how did mars turn into a comet with a coma around it?? THERE"S YOUR PROOF, THAT COMET ISON MUST BE NIBIRU!!!

I read that 3 times.  Slow.  I'm still missing the logic steps.

[zorgon]

Over ONE HOUR? Wow  I could only get as far as the first red over print

[WarToad]

Kekekeke  Just the quote from SO.  All the YouTube and videos you guys post I can't watch, they're a no-show on my work computer.

[sky otter]

sorry.. i was trying to make a point that all the gllom and doom vids are trash..guess i wasn't clear enough when i posted it by saying

ok.. i found your gloom and doom for this comet...if i wasn't laughing so dang hard i'ld be tossing things at the screen
unreal...this person was really busy to make this one

i'll spell it out completely if i try prving a point again
...sorry about wasting space

[zorgon]

sorry.. i was trying to make a point that all the gloom and doom vids are trash..guess i wasn't clear enough when i posted it by saying

Yeah you were... and yeah I agree... but some of em are funny   But not hour long rants


Just seems that they draw in certain members

[sky otter]

Comet ISON continues on its way in toward the sun and will cross the Earth's orbit on
Wednesday (Nov. 6) at 6 p.m. EDT (22:00 GMT).


http://www.space.com/23417-comet-ison-performance-approaching-sun.html




Bruce Gary of Hereford, Arizona obtained this a true color image of Comet ISON on Oct. 22, 2013, showing a greenish coma and reddish tail. The coma is now greener than the tail, which is also a result of the recent emission of gas to the coma. The coma is growing in size, as well as brightness. The tail will be slower to undergo change because it takes time for gas and dust in the coma to be swept into the tail.
Credit: Bruce Gary



Promising Comet ISON Gives Perplexing Performance En Route to Sun
by Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist   |   October 31, 2013 04:33pm ET

With just one month to go before its dramatic solar rendezvous, skirting to within a hairbreadth of the surface of the sun, Comet ISON continues to befuddle observers with its performance en route to the sun.

Based on a compilation of Comet ISON observations from observers worldwide as of Oct. 24, the comet, once proclaimed as possibly the "Comet of the Century" was running approximately 1.3 magnitudes, or 3.3 times fainter, than the "official" brightness forecast issued by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass. As the comet comes down the home stretch of its long journey before finally grazing to within 730,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) of the sun, great uncertainty continues regarding whether or not it will remain disappointingly dim or whether it will end up evolving into a spectacularly bright object.       

Carl Hergenrother of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Ariz., noted that part of the uncertainty is due to what wavelengths the comet is observed in: "Visual and CCD-V observations do show a comet that is brightening at a normal rate (perhaps even faster than normal for a dynamically new comet) while CCD-R observations show a comet that is barely brightening at all. CCD-R sees predominately dust in contrast with visual and CCD-V, which have large gas components. It seems that over the past month or so ISON's gas production rate has increased as expected while its dust production rate has not," Hergenrother said. "I don't really know what this means but something has to give, either the dust production picks up or the gas production slows down." [Photos of Comet ISON: A Potentially Great Comet]

Looking weird

The highly regarded comet observer John Bortle is just as perplexed by the comet's recent appearance, commenting that the recent images along with his own visual impression, is "downright weird." He adds that, "There is a bright, miniature, long-tailed comet situated within a much larger, but very much fainter and diffuse halo of a coma."

"Those visual people using larger telescope also often remark about the odd way the comet looks, while those using relatively small scopes and big binoculars report seeing a larger, more-or-less faint but uniform cometary mass," he added. "This comet is currently at a distance from the sun where it should no longer exhibit such a dichotomy of appearance."

Bortle has observed several hundred comets and yet, he writes, "At this stage of the game, with the comet about to cross the orbit of Earth, I cannot recall any previous comet in my 50-plus years of comet observing looking quite like this. So, what does ISON's current look foretell, or mean? I honestly don't know. All I can say is I don't like the odd look of it at this time."

One step forward, one step back

Around Oct. 19, ISON seemed to suddenly brighten at a more rapid pace. On Oct. 21, Arizona observer Bruce Gary (who was the first to image the comet after it emerged from out of the glare of the sun on Aug. 12) wrote, "The comet (coma plus tail) continues a dramatic brightening trend that started Oct 19. The inner coma has brightened (due perhaps to an outburst of gases). This next week could be busy - and exciting!" [Potentially Dazzling Comet ISON: 8 Essential Facts]

But just four days later, with the comet showing signs of fading a bit rather than brightening, Gary, sounding almost a bit exasperated commented, "I don't know what's going on with this comet!"

Analyzing all the observations made since Sept. 4 shows that ISON is responding to the sun more like a solid body would respond, rather than as a typical "fluffy" comet.

Time Running Out

Whatever is happening, Comet ISON continues on its way in toward the sun and will cross the Earth's orbit on Wednesday (Nov. 6) at 6 p.m. EDT (22:00 GMT).

For the last couple of months, observers watching the comet brighten at what has seemed to be a frustratingly slow pace are still waiting for a more rapid brightening trend. That may still happen, but time is now running out; four weeks from Thursday will be the comet's moment of truth as it whips around the sun.

Will it remain disappointingly dim? Will it finally brighten up? Will it still be completely intact when it sweeps back out into space or will the sun's extreme heat and tremendous tidal forces cause it to fracture into several pieces? At SPACE.com we will continue to monitor the comet's future behavior and provide any new updates in the days to come, so stay tuned!

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmer's Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y.

[rdunk]

sky, that is very interesting!!! It seems that to this day, at least some of the more knowledgeable people on comets still do not know what ISON is all about, or what it might do.

Just for emphasis, I am going to re-share just a piece of what is said in your comments, to further make this point.

Bortle has observed several hundred comets and yet, he writes, "At this stage of the game, with the comet about to cross the orbit of Earth, I cannot recall any previous comet in my 50-plus years of comet observing looking quite like this. So, what does ISON's current look foretell, or mean? I honestly don't know. All I can say is I don't like the odd look of it at this time."

One step forward, one step back

Around Oct. 19, ISON seemed to suddenly brighten at a more rapid pace. On Oct. 21, Arizona observer Bruce Gary (who was the first to image the comet after it emerged from out of the glare of the sun on Aug. 12) wrote, "The comet (coma plus tail) continues a dramatic brightening trend that started Oct 19. The inner coma has brightened (due perhaps to an outburst of gases). This next week could be busy - and exciting!" [Potentially Dazzling Comet ISON: 8 Essential Facts]

But just four days later, with the comet showing signs of fading a bit rather than brightening, Gary, sounding almost a bit exasperated commented, "I don't know what's going on with this comet!"

Analyzing all the observations made since Sept. 4 shows that ISON is responding to the sun more like a solid body would respond, rather than as a typical "fluffy" comet.

Time Running Out

Whatever is happening, Comet ISON continues on its way in toward the sun and will cross the Earth's orbit on Wednesday (Nov. 6) at 6 p.m. EDT (22:00 GMT).

[sky otter]

rdunk
yeah.. there is something about this comet that has my attention..more than just ordinary
attention for something to watch in the sky..
that's all i have.. just that it draws my attention

and i find this verry interesting..but i don't know what it means


comet observer John Bortle
There is a bright, miniature, long-tailed comet situated within a much larger, but very much fainter and diffuse halo of a coma."

[deuem]

Time running out for who ?  The comet?

Earth is 3 months ahead of it in out orbit. It is a Earth Orbit crossing comet, So is every other one as long as they start out past Earth and go to the sun they have to pass us. Since we are now almost 90 degrees to it, I see no problems for us unless it is going to blow the sun up or change it when they hit each other. If it is a real comet the sun should have it for breakfast. That close it has a god chance of being eaten by the sun. If it is an old stars core that went cold and drifted into the suns gravity, that might cause some excitement. That material should be very heavy and dense. No breakfast here just fall to the core and fight it out. [maybe]
Deuem

[zorgon]

Once Upon a Time....  In a Solar System not so far away...

well ours

NASA "scientists" thought it would be fun to drop a projectile onto a comet...

What happened was an unexpected EXPLOSION....

Yet there was no explosive on the impacter... just a big chunk of metal... and the comet was supposed to be a big ball of water ice and dust...

Then a few minutes later a second HUGE EXPLOSION....

This one to this day is a mystery and was seen from Earth. The flare lasted for several days seen and recorded by Hubble



Here is the time sequence 



All the info is here... 

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/02files/NASA_Crashing_Satellites_01.html


So WHAT exactly did they HIT?

Well it gets weirder...

NASA's probe continued on it's way ( and a second mission to the comet was planned to see what happened)  But here is the story...

Last Friday, NASA announced the end of attempts to contact the Deep Impact mission. Deep Impact got its name from its activity back in 2005: dropping a refrigerator-sized object into a comet at 37,000 kph and observing the debris that spewed out. This gave us an unprecedented view of the composition of comets. But the mission didn't end there; free to wander the Solar System, the probe turned its instruments on other comets, performed a close flyby of a second, and imaged a third.

Okay so NASA loves exploring space by bombing things and then jumping around like monkeys when they hit something...



But here is the FREAKY part

This year, Deep Impact had turned its instruments on comet ISON and was observing from a distance when it suddenly went silent. After a month of attempting to reestablish contact, NASA officially gave up trying.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/09/deep-impact-probe-down-and-out-ice-back-for-maybe-more/

Rest of article...

Deep Impact is not the only comet mission that's on people's minds, though. An even older bit of hardware started life as the International Sun-Earth Explorer back in 1978. But with that mission done, the spacecraft was maneuvered to where it could use the Moon's gravity to fling it on an orbit where it led Earth around the Sun. Renamed the International Cometary Explorer (ICE), it went on to observe comet Giacobini-Zinner in 1985.

Now, Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society writes that ICE's speed and 30 years have combined to ensure that ICE is on the verge of catching Earth from behind. NASA has been out of touch with ICE since 1998, but the probe still responded when contacted back then. According to her story, some scientists are thinking it might be possible to maneuver ICE so it goes back into an orbit at the Earth's L1 Lagrange point, where its instruments will let it return to scientific duty. But as Lakdawalla notes, money is a scarce commodity for NASA, so it's not clear whether any attempt to reestablish contact will be made.

[rdunk]

Z, that is very interesting. Even when NASA does stuff, it seems that sometimes they don't have a clue as to what they actually did!