Tag: Comets

Rosetta Reaches The Comet

I have mixed emotions about this sort of project. We spent a boatload of money and untold brain power solving a problem through science, math and engineering. An incredible achievement.

But, aren’t there more pressing practical problems on Earth which would have benefited from this kind of massive effort?

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As this blog entry goes out a spacecraft has reached a comet. That’s never been done before.

Rosetta launched in 2004 and will arrive at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 August. It will be the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the Sun, and deploy a lander to its surface. Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its member states and NASA.

ESA is the European Space Agency. They’re running the show.

I have mixed emotions about this sort of project. We spent a boatload of money and untold brain power solving a problem through science, math and engineering. An incredible achievement.

But, aren’t there more pressing practical problems on Earth which would have benefited from this kind of massive effort?

Rosetta, still around 60 miles away from 67P, is transmitting incredibly detailed photos of the weirdly shaped comet. Some have compared the shape to a duck. Potato shaped objects are much more common.

Was it once two separate entities that somehow fused? Does it contain pristine samples from the dawn of the universe 13.77 billion years ago? There are sure to be surprises.

After orbiting this tiny space chunk (about 2 1/4 by 2 1/2 miles though quite irregular) for a while Rosetta will move to an orbit of 30 miles, then 15 miles. Finally, probably in November, a capsule will be deployed from Rosetta to the comet’s surface.

Is this money well spent? It’s certainly splashy science… amazing science. I wish there was a well defined practical payoff.

Tonight’s Webcast

There’s a very good opportunity with more ‘show biz appeal’ coming up on May 24. We’ll be plowing through the debris field of a comet, 209p/LINEAR. A meteor shower–possibly a meteor storm!

It’s safe. The comet itself won’t be nearby. Meteors from showers never hit the Earth’s surface. They streak across the sky as they vaporize in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.

slooh_square_logoI’ve become involved with slooh.com a company that owns telescopes on the Canary Islands and in Chile and rents time to amateurs interested in using great equipment. It’s all Internet driven.

They also do webcasts whenever celestial conditions warrant. I host.

Tonight we were on for the Saturn opposition. The Sun,Earth and Saturn are aligned. Saturn is its photographically prettiest.

If you think of this as a sports broadcast, my color man was Bob Berman, an astronomer who lives in New York City’s northern exurbs. I asked questions and tried to keep the show on track.

Some of slooh’s webcasts have been viewed over a million times. Many in the high hundreds of thousands. The audience varies dependent on the excitement of the event. Tonight wasn’t a barn burner. We did show Saturn live through the Canary Islands scope.

There’s a very good opportunity with more ‘show biz appeal’ coming up on May 24. We’ll be plowing through the debris field of a comet, 209p/LINEAR. A meteor shower–possibly a meteor storm!

It’s safe. The comet itself won’t be nearby. Meteors from showers never hit the Earth’s surface. They streak across the sky as they vaporize in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.

I’ll be on for that. We should have lots of images to show.

Am I The Cometary Kiss Of Death?

comet-ison

Earlier today I posted a really cool animation from the Stereo-A satellite which monitors the Sun. It showed Comet Ison and Comet Encke heading toward the Sun while being blasted by the solar wind.

Many people feel (or felt) Ison might be the brightest and easily visible comet of our lifetimes! Almost as soon as I posted to my blog new information began to arrive suggesting hopes would be dashed.

We are seeing reports online that molecular emission from the comet has fallen dramatically, meanwhile dust production seems to be enormous. What this could indicate is that the nucleus has completely disrupted, releasing an enormous volume of dust while significantly reducing emission rates. Fragmentation or disruption of the nucleus has always been the highest risk factor for this comet so if this has indeed happened then while unfortunate, it would not be a surprise.

However, these reports are new, and while they are undoubtedly valid, we do still need to keep observing the comet to be sure what is happening. Karl Battams, Naval Research Laboratory

Simply put, it’s possible the comet has broken apart or disintegrated leaving a trail of dust and debris.

All along scientists hinted this was a possibility. Comet Ison has spent hundreds of thousands of years&#185 in the darkest reaches of space. It was safely removed from any source of heat, light or gravity. Now that was changing and changing in a hurry.

Today’s revelation is preliminary info. It points to a likely outcome, but that’s no guarantee. The more comets we see, the more we realize how little we know.

&#185 – It is being reported Comet Ison’s orbit arounnd the Sun takes 582,666 years!

A Comet Brighter Than The Moon

Back when I was hosting Inside Space on SciFi we did a program on Comet Hyakutake. I stood in an open field near an observatory near Binghamton, NY and let my jaw drop. C/2012 S1 ISON is forecast to be orders of magnitude brighter.

Some comets have become bright enough to be seen during daylight hours! It’s possible we’ll have that again.

Once you see a comet you never forget.

I’ve been working on tomorrow’s tech/science story. It’s about the recently discovered comet that’s predicted to be brighter than the Moon. For those scoring at home it’s officially Comet C/2012 S1 ISON.

As is the case with so many comet and asteroid discoveries nowadays it was spotted by an automatic sky survey. That’s a telescope that checks back at the same points in the sky to see if anything’s moved! Star positions relative to each other are constant night-to-night. Planets, comets and asteroids move separately. One is easy to pick out from the other.

I worry about this ‘brighter than the Moon’ prediction. Comets so often disappoint! This one is still out beyond Jupiter. No one benefits when the public is fed a false alarm.

We know little about C/2012 S1 ISON other than it originated in the Oort Cloud, an area around a light year from the Sun filled with comets.

We think the Oort Cloud exists. We really don’t know. No one’s ever seen it!

Back when I was hosting Inside Space on SciFi we did a program on Comet Hyakutake. I stood in an open field near Binghamton, NY for an observing party and let my jaw drop.

C/2012 S1 ISON is forecast to be orders of magnitude brighter.

Some comets have become bright enough to be seen during daylight hours! It’s possible we’ll have that again.

Once you see a comet you never forget.