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This morning a quartet of amateur comet hunters (M. Kusiak, S. Liwo, B. Zhou and Z. Xu) independently noticed a comet in SOHO coronagraph images. The icy visitor from the icy solar system is diving toward the sun--probably a one-way trip. Kusiak expects the doomed comet to brighten to first magnitude between now and the early hours of Oct. 1st.
Realtime images here.
© Michael MattiazzoAmateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo of Castlemaine, Australia caught these two images of comet Elenin on Aug. 19 (left) and Sept. 6, 2011. The images show a rapid dimming in the comet, possibly hinting at its disintegration.
Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin had the good fortune to discover a comet on Dec. 10, 2010, and it's turned out to be quite a skywatching curiosity.
Initially, comet Elenin received quite a bit of attention from astronomers because its orbit would take it quite close to Earth, within 22 million miles (35 million kilometers), on Oct. 16, 2011. It looked like it was going to put on a good show.
Even as recently as Aug. 19, the comet was brighter than predicted, as observed and photographed by amateur astronomers in Australia, notably Michael Mattiazzo.
Then, disaster struck in the form of a coronal mass ejection from the sun. The next day the comet had dropped half a magnitude in brightness, and has continued to drop, despite the icy body getting closer to the sun. Apparently the comet is disintegrating, as sometimes happens when comets pass too close to the sun.
Meanwhile, this rather small and ordinary comet has become the subject of media frenzy among conspiracy theorists and 2012 doomsayers. Comet Elenin has been accused of being a brown dwarf or the mysterious and destructive planet "Nibiru," and has been blamed for earthquakes and tsunamis. Did you know that its discoverer's name is really an acronym for "Extinction Level Event: Nibiru Is Nigh."
On Sept. 10 the comet passed its perihelion, a phase marking its closest approach to the sun, at a distance of 44,840,000 miles (72,170,000 km).
© Michael MattiazzoComet Elenin on Sept. 14, 2011. It is is now almost indiscernible. Image and annotated chart by Michael Mattiazzo.
As far as Comet Elenin goes, the only chance of impending doom is for the comet itself: it is disintegrating and quickly fading away. Australian amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo has been monitoring this comet's trip toward perihelion (closest point in its orbit to the Sun), which occurred on September 10, 2011, and he says Comet Elenin has likely has not survived. The image above was taken by Mattiazzo on today (Sept. 14) and it is barely visible as a disintegrating smudge.
Comet Elenin - the comet that has created a hoopla of completely nonsensical, non-scientific doomsday predictions - faded dramatically after being hit by a solar flare on August 20, as we reported earlier. Subsequent images revealed a spreading, diffuse coma. It will likely continue to fade and become more diffuse.
Elenin's mass is smaller than average and its trajectory will take it no closer than 34 million km (21 million miles) of Earth as it circles the Sun. It will make its closest approach to Earth on October 16th, but was closest to the Sun on Sept. 10.
A comet is diving into the sun today. Just discovered by comet hunters Michal Kusiak of Poland and Sergei Schmalz of Germany, the icy visitor from the outer solar system is expected to brighten to first magnitude before it disintegrates on Sept. 14th.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is monitoring the comet's death plunge: finder chart, movie, latest images.
© SOHO LASCO C3
© ESORussian amateur astronomer discovers new comet.
The comet is the first comet discovered from Russian territory since 1989.
Novichonok's discovery was confirmed by the International Astronomical Union, the comet being designated P/2011 R3 (Novichonok), the Ka-Dar Observatory, where Novichonok made his discovery, said on its website.
Novichonok discovered the comet on 6 images taken in September using a 0.4-m Jigit telescope.
Certain metals like gold, platinum, nickel, tungsten and iridium are attracted to iron, which comprises the Earth's core. So when the Earth first formed as a molten mass, all of these elements should have migrated to the core, leaving the outer layers of Earth stripped of its precious metals.
Yet as hopeful '49-ers knew, Earth's crust is laced with these enticing elements. Geologists have posed several theories to explain this puzzle, but one suggests that Earth was bombarded with meteorites between 3.8 and 4 billion years ago, studding the early crust with our favorite shiny metals. These metals then became incorporated into the modern mantle over time.
This idea is supported by the presence of craters on the moon, which date back to the same time, suggesting that the moon was also hit. Now, research published today in Nature, provides further evidence in favor of this explanation.
A team led by Matthias Willbold of the University of Bristol, U.K., sampled ancient rocks from southwest Greenland that formed some of the Earth's earliest crust, predating the proposed bombardment, and compared those with newer rocks from other places representing the modern mantle.
© NASA
Now it is absolutely clear that the comet's drop in brightness, first noted by Michael Mattiazzo on Aug. 20th, was not coincidental - the decay process had already begun, and over the course of the next several days the comet changed greatly. Its pseudo-nucleus became diffuse and extended, and later vanished completely. On images from Sept. 1st in the comet's coma there was no condensation visible, and that meant the comet had already broken up into fairly small pieces, with a maximum size of not more than a hundred meters.
© Michael MattiazzoC/2010 X1 Elenin, on Aug 29, 2011.
On August 19, a massive solar flare and coronal mass ejection hit the comet, which may have been the beginning of the end for the much ballyhooed lump of ice and dirt.
© NASA/STEREOComet Elenin as seen by the STEREO HI1-B on Aug. 6, 2011, from about 7 million kilometers from the spacecraft.
One journalist joked that maybe Comet Elenin just couldn't take all the doomsday talk and publicity.
"It really has been a beautiful little comet and it deserves a better fate than to be overhyped by doom-sayers," said Musgrave.
Over the weekend, incoming Comet Garradd passed beautifully close to globular star cluster M71. For all those amateur astronomers caught under hurricane clouds, John Chumack of Dayton, Ohio, recorded the encounter in the form of a 2.5 hour time-lapse movie:
"It was so cool watching the comet's tail cross the cluster," says Chumack. "I had a great view through my home-made 16-inch telescope."
At the moment, Comet Garradd can only be seen through a backyard telescope (recommended: The Comet Hunter). It is, however, approaching the sun and brightening. Recent projections place it at peak magnitude 6, on the threshold of naked-eye visibility, in February 2012. Because Comet Garradd is a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, it could behave in unexpected ways, perhaps exceeding those expectations. Stay tuned--and meanwhile browse the image links below.
"It was so cool watching the comet's tail cross the cluster," says Chumack. "I had a great view through my home-made 16-inch telescope."
At the moment, Comet Garradd can only be seen through a backyard telescope (recommended: The Comet Hunter). It is, however, approaching the sun and brightening. Recent projections place it at peak magnitude 6, on the threshold of naked-eye visibility, in February 2012. Because Comet Garradd is a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, it could behave in unexpected ways, perhaps exceeding those expectations. Stay tuned--and meanwhile browse the image links below.
© Starry Night SoftwareComet Garradd can be seen right now with binoculars in the constellation Sagitta.
Skywatchers often ask "When's the next comet?" In fact, if you're prepared to do a bit of searching, there are always several comets visible in the night sky, including two right now.
Some comets are like old friends, they keep coming back at regular intervals to visit. These are called periodic comets; Comet Halley was the first such comet to be identified, by Edmond Halley back in 1705. It returns to the inner solar system every 75 to 76 years; its last appearance was in 1986 and its next will be in 2061. At present Halley is out just beyond Neptune's orbit.
Other comets are one-time visitors: they come in to visit us from the Oort Cloud, warm themselves for a few months by the sun, and then head back out to the farthest reaches of the solar system.
There are two comets currently visiting the inner solar system - comet Elenin and comet Garradd - so the next two months will provide some excellent opportunities to observe these unusual visitors. The sky map of the two comets here shows their locations over the next few weeks.
