Comets


Meteor

New Comet Discovery May Be Brightest Visitor In Past Hundred Years

Lawrence LeBlond
RedOrbit
Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:32 UTC
Comet ISON
© Photos.com
Hale-Bopp, Haley's, McNaught. These are just a few of the more well-known modern comets that have blazed across the night sky in our lifetime. Another comet that has been recently discovered could be added to that list next year when it makes a pass by the Sun in late 2013.

The comet, named C/2012 S1 (ISON), is due to come within 1.1 million miles of the Sun on, or around, November 29, 2013. Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok from Russia, made the discovery using the International Scientific Optical Network's (ISON) telescope, capturing the images of the comet on 21 September with CCD imagery equipment.

The comet could blaze brightly across the heavens when it does arrive, experts believe. But just how brightly is difficult to determine. And there could be a chance the Sun will jus t boil it away as it passes, just as happened to comet Elenin last year. If it does survive the encounter, experts speculate it could outshine any comet seen in the last hundred years - perhaps even brighter than the full moon. If so, it should be easily visible to the naked eye for about two months, and could even be visible during daylight.

If the predictions hold true, Comet C/2012 S1 will likely be one of the greatest comet encounters in human history, exceedingly outshining the memorable Hale-Bopp of 1997 and Haley's Comet in 1986. It could even be a much bigger spectacle than the long-awaited Comet Pan-STARRS, which will make a pass in March 2013.
Read More...
Meteor

Is Newly Discovered Comet ISON Half of the Great Comet of 1680? - Curious similarity between the orbit of Comet ISON and that of the Great Comet of 1680


SpaceWeather.com
Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:05 UTC
Image
© Painting by Atlas van StolkThe Great Comet of 1680 - Rotterdam
Astronomy forums are buzzing with speculation about newly-discovered Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). Currently located beyond the orbit of Jupiter, Comet ISON is heading for a very close encounter with the sun next year. In Nov. 2013, it will pass less than 0.012 AU (1.8 million km) from the solar surface. The fierce heating it experiences then could turn the comet into a bright naked-eye object

Much about this comet--and its ultimate fate--remains unknown. "At this stage we're just throwing darts at the board," says Karl Battams of the NASA-supported Sungrazer Comet Project, who lays out two possibilities:

"In the best case, the comet is big, bright, and skirts the sun next November. It would be extremely bright -- negative magnitudes maybe -- and naked-eye visible for observers in the Northern Hemisphere for at least a couple of months."
Read More...
Meteor

New Comet: C/2012 S1 (ISON)

Ernesto Guido, Giovanni Sostero & Nick Howes
Remanzacco Observatory
Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:07 UTC
Cbet nr. 3238, issued on 2012, September 24, announces the discovery of a new comet (discovery magnitude 18.8) by Vitali Nevski (Vitebsk, Belarus) and Artyom Novichonok (Kondopoga, Russia) on CCD images obtained on Sept. 21.06 UT with a 0.4-m f/3 Santel reflector of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) near Kislovodsk, Russia. The new comet has been designated C/2012 S1 (ISON).

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) will get to within 0.012AU of the Sun (extremely close) at the end of November 2013 and then to ~0.4AU from Earth at the beginning of January 2014! According to its orbit, this comet might become a naked-eye object in the period November 2013 - January 2014. And it might reach a negative magnitude at the end of November 2013.

We performed some follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of 24 unfiltered exposures, 120-sec each, obtained remotely on 2012, September 22.4 from H06 (ITelescope network near Mayhill, NM) through a 0.25-m, f/3.4 reflector + CCD, shows that this object is slightly diffused, with a 5" coma. The FWHM of this object was measured about 15% wider than that of nearby field stars of similar brightness.

Our confirmation image
C/2012 S1
© Remanzacco Observatory
Here you can see an animation showing the movement of the comet in about 30 minutes
Read More...
Meteor

Huge Comet Spotted Over North West England


The Mirror, UK
Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:33 UTC

Twitter went into meltdown this evening as hundreds of people reported seeing a comet or meteor shower over the north of England.

Flashing lights apparently flew across the night sky at just before 11pm, sending people across the region into a frenzy.

Llinos Thomas, a 30-year-old dentist and Boyfriend Matt Brennen, a 26-year-old engineer, were among those who witnessed the events.

Mr Thomas said: "We were on the A55 from Chester towards North Wales and we thought we saw a firework.

"It was a massive cluster of lights in the sky, but travelling really quickly West and that's when we realised it was a meteor shower.

"It was travelling at really high speed for ten seconds and died out and faded away.
Read More...
Meteor

Meteor or Comet Fragment breaks up over UK, 21 September 2012

Fraser Cain
Universe Today
Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:01 UTC

Twitter is all abuzz with sightings of a huge fireball meteor that streaked across the skies Friday night at approximately 22:00 UTC. There are reports from Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Central England.

I'm going to link a bunch of videos so you can check out the event from multiple angles, but I want to make a completely unscientific judgement: it kind of looks like a re-entering spacecraft. Take a look at what the Jules Verne spacecraft looked like when it came back into the Earth's atmosphere. See how it broke up into all those pieces? And don't let anyone fool you with this picture. It was taken about 3 years ago in the Netherlands.

Phil made a similar observation, but he's still on the fence. We'll have to wait for someone official to tell us what it was.

Did you see it? Did you get a video?

I'll give you an update as soon as I know anything else.

Here are some videos. Fair warning, there's a lot of bad language in almost all the videos. I can't blame them, I'd probably be swearing too. Just keep that in mind as you watch with your kids.
Read More...
Meteor

New Evidence for Comet Crash That Killed Ice Age Beasts

Megan Gannon
LiveScience
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:18 UTC
Spherules
© University of South CarolinaSpherules from archaeological sites in the study. The microscopic particles have marred surface patterns from being crystallized in a molten state and then rapidly cooled.
Scientists say they have new evidence to support the idea that a space rock crashed into Earth about 12,900 years ago, wiping out some of North America's biggest beasts and ushering in a period of extreme cooling.

If such an impact took place, it did not leave behind any obvious clues like a crater. But microscopic melted rock formations called spherules and nano-sized diamonds in ancient soil layers could be telltale signs of a big collision. The mix of particles could only have formed under extreme temperatures, created by a comet or asteroid impact.

Researchers first reported in 2007 that these particles were found at several archaeological sites in layers of sediment 12,900 years old. Now an independent study published in the (Sept.17) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) says those findings hold up.
Read More...
Meteor

Did a massive comet explode over Canada 12,900 years ago in North America and propel the Earth into an Ice Age?

Peggy Binette
PhysOrg
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:07 UTC
Image
Did a massive comet explode over Canada 12,900 years ago, wiping out both beast and man in North America and propelling the earth back into an ice age? That's a question that has been hotly debated by scientists since 2007, with the University of South Carolina's Topper archaeological site right in the middle of the comet impact controversy. However, a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides further evidence that it may not be such a far-fetched notion.

Albert Goodyear, an archaeologist in USC's College of Arts and Sciences, is a co-author on the study that upholds a 2007 PNAS study by Richard Firestone, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Firestone found concentrations of spherules (micro-sized balls) of metals and nano-sized diamonds in a layer of sediment dating 12,900 years ago at 10 of 12 archaeological sites that his team examined. The mix of particles is thought to be the result of an extraterrestrial object, such as a comet or meteorite, exploding in the earth's atmosphere.

Among the sites examined was USC's Topper, one of the most pristine U.S. sites for research on Clovis, one of the earliest ancient peoples. "This independent study is yet another example of how the Topper site with its various interdisciplinary studies has connected ancient human archaeology with significant studies of the Pleistocene," said Goodyear, who began excavating Clovis artifacts in 1984 at the Topper site in Allendale, S.C. "It's both exciting and gratifying."

Comment:
The Younger Dryas Impact Event and the Cycles of Cosmic Catastrophes - Climate Scientists Awakening

Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow

Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls

Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!

Read More...
Meteor

SOTT Focus: Incoming! Meteor or Comet Fragment Explodes Above Southwestern US, Prompting US Army 'Missiles' Cover-up

Niall Bradley
Sott.net
Sun, 16 Sep 2012 04:29 UTC
Image
© Trish Van HousenPhoto taken near Phoenix, Arizona of the trail left behind by an incoming meteor/comet fragment that exploded above southwestern US on September 13th 2012.
On Thursday morning, 13th September 2012, early risers from all over the southwestern United States - California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico - were stunned by the appearance of a vivid luminescent trail high up in the atmosphere. Photos taken by residents reminded me of the glowing trail seen across the Caucasus on the 7th June 2012 (which I have written about here). My suspicion that we were looking at the arrival and overhead explosion of yet another meteor or cometary fragment (MoCF) solidified when I read some of the ridiculous claims of the US Army that they had test-fired a rocket/missile at 5.30am local time on the 13th of September.

Folks contacted law enforcement in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado to report "a crash". A sheriff's deputy in northern New Mexico said he witnessed "an explosion" and part of the object breaking apart from the main body. No one reported a trail moving from the ground upwards, just a very fast-moving dot in the sky that produced a very bright trail mid-atmosphere, indicating that nothing was launched from the ground.

Damage control quickly went into operation, with Associated Press reporting that:
The "explosion" was a normal separation of the first and second stages of the unarmed Juno ballistic missile that was fired at 6:30 a.m. MT from Fort Wingate near Gallup, N.M., said Drew Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range. The expended first stage landed in a designated area of U.S. Forest Service land.
Read More...
Meteor

European Space Agency plans to build radars for tracking incoming meteors and comet fragments

Michael Cooney
Network World
Sat, 15 Sep 2012 04:40 UTC
Image
There is nothing any government or private institution can do to prevent a rain of fire from above.
The European Space Agency today said it would develop a radar system that will be capable of tracking space hazards such as asteroids and orbital debris.

ESA and France's Office National d'Etudes et Recherches Aérospatiales - research center will work with five other partners in France, Spain and Switzerland to this month design a test surveillance radar and develop a $6 million demonstrator model.

ESA says the radar will make use of what's known as "bistatic" technology where the radar emitter and receiver are set up at separate locations and the energy is emitted continuously. For the new test radar, the emitter will be located at a former airport near Crucey-Villages, about 100 km west of Paris, while the receiver will be near Palaiseau, to the south of Paris.

Conversely in 2010 ESA contracted with Spain's Indra Espacio SA to develop a test radar that uses a "monostatic" approach where the radar emitter and the receiver are at the same spot and the energy is emitted in discrete pulses, the ESA stated.

Comment: "Threatening asteroids" passing between here and the moon are not what they are really focused on (although the increased presence of near-miss asteroids certainly points to us passing through denser concentrations of cometary debris). The fact that they're planning such things also makes a farce out of the official stance that there is nothing to fear from space.

Beyond civilian space programmes operated by agencies like the ESA, what the deep-state military types are up to is something else entirely. They appear to be actively tracking cometary bodies, meteors and so on, entering our atmosphere, then launching missiles in the vicinity in order to mask the celestial phenomenon as a military one:

Disguising Celestial Intentions US Military claims it launched three test missiles over Southwestern US

Read More...
Meteor

Updated Images: Jupiter Swallows an Asteroid - or a Comet?


SpaceWeather.com
Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:14 UTC
Around the world, amateur astronomers have been scanning the cloudtops of Jupiter for signs of debris from an explosion witnessed by Dan Peterson and George Hall on Sept. 10th. So far the cloud layer is blank. "Several observers have now obtained excellent images on the second and third rotations after the fireball, and there is nothing new nor distinctive at the impact site," reports John H. Rogers, director of the Jupiter Section of the British Astronomical Association:
Image
The fireball was probably caused by a small asteroid or comet hitting Jupiter. Apparently, the giant planet swallowed the impactor whole.

Comment: Comparing this image with the image of the impact site, it appears NASA is downplaying the size of whatever hit Jupiter.
Image
Image
© George Hall


Read More...