REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Comet ISON

POSTED BY: MAL4PREZ
UPDATED: Friday, November 29, 2013 23:16
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 2260
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Saturday, November 23, 2013 5:25 PM

MAL4PREZ


Anyone else as psyched about this as I am?



Best case, it survives the sun and we have a blazing beautiful comet to enjoy in the northern skies through December.

If it doesn't survive, bummer, but we will still have multiple detailed views of its demise. Here it is, with its partner comet Encke just entering Stereo-A's view (Stereo-A is one of two observers orbiting the sun opposite earth)

http://www.isoncampaign.org/karl/updated-ison-encke-movie

Stereo A and B will be watching ISON's encounter with the sun in the early afternoon of Thanksgiving day, posting live images and movies.

http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/comet_ison/

If the turkey's ready, it can wait, because I'll be watching ISON! I've been waiting for this since Halley's comet in 86 was a dud. I caught Halley's sad little blur in my sad little telescope. Hyakutake was nice in 1996, especially nice that I happened to be on a beach in Jamaica to see it. But ISON, with all the observing power we have now....

Fasten your seat belts!

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Saturday, November 23, 2013 7:07 PM

JONGSSTRAW


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Anyone else as psyched about this as I am?



Your friend has a message :
Quote:

Originally posted by ElvisChrist:

you're just a racist cunt


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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 1:31 AM

MAL4PREZ


You fuckers are daft if that's all the response comet ISON has gotten. Yeah, I know that Jongs is oatmeal from the forehead on back, and let's not even talk about Rappy, but the rest of you?

Whatever. I'll just pretend to believe that there are brains besides mine that care about what is *real* out there beyond the messed-up-ness of humans. This is for them.

Update from http://www.isoncampaign.org/karl/kitt-peaks-and-valleys
Experiencing Kitt Peaks and Valleys as ISON Takes Us On A Ride
Submitted by Karl Battams on Tue, 11/26/2013 - 19:01


Yesterday the big news was that ISON was giving some serious indications of having "disrupted" - i.e. an indication that its nucleus had simply fallen apart. Let me explain what that would mean. If you imaging a comet as big brick house, the bricks would be the dust/rocks in ISON's nucleus and the mortar that holds the bricks together would be the comet's ice. In essence, the ice is the structure that binds the whole comet together, and as that ice begins to melt away, the rocks/dust (our bricks) become loose and fall away, exposing fresh bricks and mortar. This complete disruption we speak of would mean that the majority of the ices (the mortar) has melted and the dust/rocks (bricks) are completely loose.

So what would that mean? Well, it would mean that comet ISON is now more-or-less just a giant cloud of disconnected dust and rapidly melting chunks of ice. If this is the case, then when ISON passes through the NASA SDO field of view and the Sun's million degree solar corona, the likely outcome would be the complete vaporization of the comet. Scientifically, and visually in those images, this would likely be spectacular, but for those that want to see ISON in the night sky in December it would be catastrophic news.

But is that what has happened?

Matthew and I talked extensively about this last night, and as he performed his photometry and observed the comet's brightness dropping, he said something along the lines of "I hate to say it, but I really think it's gone." That was a pretty heartbreaking admission for him, and even more so for me as I reluctantly had to agree. This would not spell the end for science - far from it, in fact! But would definitely kill the chances of a nice night sky object in December. And so it was with heavy hearts and heavier eyelids that we retreated to our dorm rooms for the night.


This morning was a fresh day, and we came in to the telescope control room to a fresh set of STEREO data waiting for us on our laptops. Having left Matthew to do his photometry while I analyzed some other interesting aspects of the data I'd spotted, I was started out of my science-induced stupor by an exclamation of, "It got brighter again!/. Not quite believing him, I scooted my chair over and sure enough there was a lightcurve showing a nice steady increase in ISON's brightness! What gives??!

First the good news: we are now significantly less fearful that it has fully disrupted, and we think there is still a significant chance that an appreciable chunk of nucleus still exists! Now the details: why do we think this, and what do we think might have happened?

When we look at Matthew's light-curve (sorry, we can't show it here right now) we see that shortly after ISON entered the STEREO field of view, the brightness increased sharply and then leveled off. This corresponds in time with the reported increased in dust and decrease in emission. The brightness then fell, which was very worrying. That's what led us to our "demise" conclusion. But then over the following ~36hrs, to at least 12UT on Nov 26, ISON's brightness climbed gradually and steadily, more-or-less exactly how we expect a healthy sungrazer to behave! So our hypothesis is that ISON may have simply undergone another outburst, perhaps involving some degree of fragmentation, but has now returned to "correct" behavior.

We don't know if that's true, or if ISON really has just fallen apart. And we still have no idea what ISON will do at perihelion. But we don't have too much longer to speculate! Just a short time ago, comet ISON entered the SOHO/LASCO C3 field of view, giving us our first true realtime look at the comet!

At first glance, I had to exclaim that ISON looks remarkably similar to how comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) did in 2011 when it first entered LASCO C3 in December 2011. This would not be the first time we've used Lovejoy as an analogy, though that comet had nowhere the quantity of pre-perihelion observations that ISON has had, so we can't easily compare the two.

Upon inspection I'd say that ISON is maybe marginally fainter than Lovejoy was at this point, but really not by much. Matthew will be looking at that soon and we'll let you know the outcome. And we know all too well that Sungrazing comets can brighten by anywhere up to ten magnitudes as they cross this field of view. So all is far from lost, and while yesterday ended on a sour note, today ends on a much better one. We still have a comet, and tomorrow could be a really exciting day as it moves through this field of view and also the two COR-2 cameras on the twin NASA STEREO satellites.

You should definitely bookmark the SOHO latest images page and check back often as we have pretty much realtime coverage throughout perihelion now. On Thursday, the focus will be on the LASCO C2 camera and then, perhaps most exciting of all, the NASA SDO cameras. The SDO team will be holding a live viewing party that you really shouldn't miss! There will also be a Google Hangout from 1:00 to 3:30pm EST featuring Alex Young and Dean Pesnell from NASA Goddard, astronomy blogger extraordinaire Phil Plait, and me! It'll be a really fun event so we urge you to watch us live on Youtube (I don't think the link has been released yet) and Tweet us your questions with the tags #ISON and #AskNASA.


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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 2:13 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Okay, okay....................count me in among the throng of 'fuckers' that care.

Yippee!


SGGexcitedisall

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 2:38 AM

OONJERAH



My friend a few doors up told me about this a few days ago,
then I saw in mentioned in the news.
Never was a star-gazer eventho I always thot myself a sci-fi
fan as a kid. The beauty of Nature was always important to
me ... so why not the stars & the heavens? Maybe it's all just
too big.

Sleeping outside under the Stars, OtoH, always made me kind
of crazy with wanting to know something about the Universe,
but mainly, millions of stars had more millions of planets &
a lot of 'em had life. I wanted to know more about that so
bad, it kind of hurt.

If the main event for Ison is Thursday afternoon, broad day-
light, how will it look from California? Should I be watching
it on TV? If so, gotta watch it with my friend -- no TV here.

=========================== :>

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 2:46 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Hadn't been paying attention, myself.

So, if it makes the turn, will it sling out into the vastyness of space? Gone for ever ? Or will it stick around, and fall back for one more go? Seems like it's bye-bye, either way.

Hope it's pretty.



Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 8:23 AM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!


I really hope it survives the sun pass by and ends up being visible. I got my oldest son a telescope for Christmas and we might have to let him open it early.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 9:45 AM

BIGDAMNNOBODY


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
You fuckers are daft if that's all the response comet ISON has gotten. Yeah, I know that Jongs is oatmeal from the forehead on back, and let's not even talk about Rappy, but the rest of you?

Whatever. I'll just pretend to believe that there are brains besides mine that care about what is *real* out there beyond the messed-up-ness of humans. This is for them.



Wow! Crave attention much?

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 10:26 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Originally posted by BIGDAMNNOBODY:
Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
You fuckers are daft if that's all the response comet ISON has gotten. Yeah, I know that Jongs is oatmeal from the forehead on back, and let's not even talk about Rappy, but the rest of you?

Whatever. I'll just pretend to believe that there are brains besides mine that care about what is *real* out there beyond the messed-up-ness of humans. This is for them.



Wow! Crave attention much?



Pfft, every single person in the WORLD does, don't you know what the internet is for? It's for random people spouting off all the time with opinions and feelings and musings and stories and newsposts then hoping someone far away will notice them in our modern socially isolated and moribund existence.

The fact that you're even here, talking, indicates that you want attention and approval yourself - probably without even realizing it. But why else bother talking to other people? It's already annoying in real life, but on the INTERNET where we can all hide behind anonymous and emotionally sterilized text to be assholes to everyone else? Seriously, why ELSE would ANYONE post on the internet?

This board in particular is recommended by the amazing ability around here to turn anything into a partisan snipe hunt within 60 seconds.

It's like a super power. I've gone well past frustrated into a sort of awed fascination. I don't have any partisanism to fall back on but I've tried to help out by creating awful drama scenarios wherever I go. It is my contribution to the dysfunction, my bloody sacrifice to the all consuming horror of human existence.

I'm not very good at it though because most of the time I give up halfway through and it's just like, eh, too much effort. Where's the popcorn? Then I lurk like a depraved voyeur for a while.

Let's be honest, we're all DESPERATE for socializing if we subject ourselves voluntarily to this kinda horseshit. Me, I'm actually unfathomably pathetic, but I'm self-aware enough to know I am and embrace it.

Anyway.

I figure if the comet is visible then I'll see the comet when I get up in the morning one day. Unless it's blocked by the mountains, in which case my chances of seeing it were already nonexistent.

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 10:30 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Not much of a stargazer myself, but hubby loves anything solar/ stellar. I'll let him know!

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 12:09 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by BIGDAMNNOBODY:
Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
You fuckers are daft if that's all the response comet ISON has gotten. Yeah, I know that Jongs is oatmeal from the forehead on back, and let's not even talk about Rappy, but the rest of you?

Whatever. I'll just pretend to believe that there are brains besides mine that care about what is *real* out there beyond the messed-up-ness of humans. This is for them.



Wow! Crave attention much?





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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 12:20 PM

MAL4PREZ


Yeah Byte, all of that, but I'm not wasting my time explaining much to BDN. I'll just say I'm not shining a spotlight on me. I'm all about the comet! If I ever crave attention for myself, I'll post something entirely different. ;)


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Not much of a stargazer myself, but hubby loves anything solar/ stellar. I'll let him know!



Ironically, I have two students doing a semester long research project into the physics of stars, so the timing for this is absolutely perfect. We've been reading about the structure of the corona and such for the last few months and now one of them has changed his project to be all about this comet.

I think I already said that I was 14 when Halley went by, and I looked forward to it for several years in advance. Then it sucked. So I've been eager for any good comet since then. I surely do hope this one is visible in December, but even if not I'm enjoying what our technology can do.

I'll by watching perihelion live online tomorrow. It's just fascinating, and the first time we've been able to track something like this in such detail. There's going to be several movies of it, and it shows the solar wind and the action of the sun's magnetic field. Sweet!


*---------------------------------------*
The French Revolution would have never happened if Marie Antoinette had just given every peasant an iPhone.

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013 5:58 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by G:
I did catch a bit of a PBS special last night on ISON. Have to say, the dramatic slingshot ellipse freaks me out a bit, but then I've always thought Catastrophe (whether of our making or not) feels like the right way for us to buy it. We'd all be busy with our little big ideas and WHAM! Perspective, darkness.



Just so you know, there is no way this comet presents any danger to Earth. None at all. It is heading steeply up above the plane of Earth's orbit and not coming at all close to us. The Sun will heat it up and it may have tiny little adjustments to its orbit due to jets and such, but very very minor.


Quote:

Even more unsettling though, the infrared video of the sun's surface, all the turmoil, all the solar flares, e-fucking-gads it's busy. I want to throw a blanket over it. I understand why folks freaked out when Haley's comet would come by.
The Sun is awesome, all the stuff going on in there. I'm really enjoying the research my students are doing because I've always wanted to know about the balancing act of stars. (Balance between gravitation collapse and fusion explosions inside, that is.) It is quite awe-inspiring what nature does.

Quote:

fwiw - if I had a teacher, male or female, who addressed the class as "You fuckers..." I think they'd be one of my favs.
That's one sad thing about teaching high school - I'm not allowed to talk like that LOL!

Latest report says it's getting brighter...

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Thursday, November 28, 2013 4:57 AM

FREMDFIRMA



I am vaguely interested, my thing is that I dun wanna LOOK, I wanna GO...
Cause I SO want off this rock - Gliese 581d is lookin better and better every day, now if only I had a way to GET there.

-F

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Thursday, November 28, 2013 8:22 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Fin.

Quote:

Like Icarus, comet ISON appears to have flown too close to the sun and broken up in its corona.

Scientists had hoped that the comet from the farthest reaches of the solar system would be able to slingshot around the sun Thursday and emerge streaming a tail visible to the naked eye next month.

But after NASA telescopes tracked the comet plunging into the sun's corona, no evidence of it emerged on the other side. Scientists said they would continue to analyze imagery from the telescopes for signs of the comet or debris from it breaking up.

"At this point, I do suspect that the comet has broken up and died," says Karl Battams, a comet scientist for the Naval Research Laboratory, who joined a NASA and Google+ chat from Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona. "Let's at least give it a couple of more hours before we start writing the obituary."


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/28/comet-ison-nasa/3
776419
/




Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, November 28, 2013 11:47 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



STOP THE PRESSES !!


" I'm not dead yet !"




( Something... has survived ! )

In the movie, Comet ISON seems to be falling apart as it approaches the sun. Indeed, researchers working with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory said they saw nothing along the track that ISON was expected to follow through the sun's atmosphere. Nevertheless, something has emerged. Whether this is a small scorched fragment of Comet ISON's nucleus or perhaps a "headless comet"--a stream of debris marking the remains of the comet's disintegrated core--remains to be seen.


Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, November 29, 2013 7:59 AM

MAL4PREZ


Or not?

Quote:


Comet Ison, or some part of it, may have survived its encounter with the Sun, say scientists.

The giant ball of ice and dust was initially declared dead when it failed to re-emerge from behind the star with the expected brightness.

All that could be seen was a dull smudge in space telescope images - its nucleus and tail assumed destroyed.

But recent pictures have indicated a brightening of what may be a small fragment of the comet.

Astronomers admit to being surprised and delighted, but now caution that anything could happen in the coming hours and days.

This remnant of Ison could continue to brighten, or it could simply fizzle out altogether.

"We've been following this comet for a year now and all the way it has been surprising us and confusing us," said astrophysicist Karl Battams, who operates the US space agency-funded Sungrazing Comets Project.

"It's just typical that right at the end, when we said, 'yes, it has faded out, it's died, we've lost it in the Sun', that a couple of hours later it should pop right back up again," he told BBC News.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25143861

The website has a little video showing the re-emergence.

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The French Revolution would have never happened if Marie Antoinette had just given every peasant an iPhone.

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Friday, November 29, 2013 8:52 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Did ya NOT notice the post, right above yours ?

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, November 29, 2013 10:59 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Aw, gee. I saw on the Interwebs where it was a Messenger of Doom from PlanetX- Niburu, and if it didn't destroy Mars on its way in, It was gonna get us on the trip out. Direct hit, end of the human race, all that. And of course I believed it-- everything ya see on the 'Net is TRUE, THEY wouldn't let it on there if it wasn't, even the brave isolated heroes who post the REAL TRUTH the Powers don't want you to know
{ /Sarcastic mode off}

Aw, gee, maybe the prophets were wrong- it wasn't this one, it'll be the NEXT one.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna have to pay off the credit card bills for all of this survival gear, not to mention all the goodies I bought, and my new tin-foil hat...

Oh, well, the polar bear repellent works good. ( "But, NOBC, you live in Los Angeles. There aren't any polar bears in 2000 miles, except the ones in zoos.") Yepper, the stuff works that well.

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Friday, November 29, 2013 11:14 AM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Did ya NOT notice the post, right above yours ?


No need to be an ass, because no I didn't. Had the thread open from last night and didn't refresh before replying to Frem.

Jeez you're tetchy this morning! Go eat some leftover turkey and take a nap or something.


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The French Revolution would have never happened if Marie Antoinette had just given every peasant an iPhone.

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Friday, November 29, 2013 1:58 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Not tetchy in the least. Just askin.

Mmmm... Left over turkey day fixins. Yum.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, November 29, 2013 3:29 PM

BYTEMITE


Pie.

I have four of them.

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Friday, November 29, 2013 11:16 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


The latest...

Quote:

“We have no idea how big this nucleus is, if there is indeed one. If there is a nucleus, it is still too soon to tell how long it will survive. If it does survive for more than a few days, it is too soon to tell if the comet will be visible in the night sky. If it is visible in the night sky, it is too soon to say how bright it will be... “


Quote:



Comet ISON reached perihelion at 18:25 UT (10:25 PT) today. It's an event that's being watched around the world, accompanied by tons of commentary and streams of photos. We will update this blog entry periodically with links to all the resources that we hear of for following the comet's progress.

Update: It's not dead yet! Read the latest Comet ISON Observing Campaign blog entry for the latest, utterly baffling status report.

Had enough animations yet? Here's one from the STEREO Behind spacecraft, a unique perspective on the comet rounding the Sun. I (Emily) am not sure why it's so much brighter in this view than in the SOHO ones -- I suspect that the viewing geometry makes dust much more visible than from other points of view.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/comet-ison-live-b
log.html





Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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