Earth to have close brush with comet

Originally posted by davenman
Unholy,

Don't misread the charts that you posted a reference to. The minimum miss distance number is the closest that the object could possibly come to the earth. You'll see that the nominal number is 33.7 LD or 8.4 million miles. Over the next few days, you'll see that number get refined more precisely as they get better tracking on the fragment.

Yes, I noticed and said it could be the minimum pass distance. We'll just have to see. Still, there's lots of fragments and it is interesting to see what happens.

Cheers.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Just look up an astronomy club near you. Type in your city or a near by college and then "astronomy club" into a search engine. There's bound to be something!

Good idea! Will do!

Mod Edit: Big Quote – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 8-5-2006 by AgentSmith]

I just joined because I have been following this thread for a while now and am intrigued by the fact that there really is no coverage of this comet in the news. Now granted NASA is saying that there is no chance of impact but still it would at least be a great sight to see it in the sky and yet you have no news coverage? Kind of fishy to me.

[edit on 4-5-2006 by iggster]

Iggster,

Welcome to the group!

There have been a few articles about this in most of the papers in the country, but it's a small article in one of the mid sections. The news is not going to cover this because there's not much that they can report unless they have a telescope to view their cameras through.

These fragments are not going to become bright enough to be easily visible to the eye unless there is some sort of outburst by a certain fragment. If this comet had not broken up, then it would probably be bright enough to be the comet of the decade, but because it has broken up, the seperate fragments are barely bright enough to be visible to the naked eye and then only in dark skies.

Currently, it is going to be difficult to see any of the comet fragments because the moon is approaching full. A few days past the full moon it will get easier to find the fragments again, but by then the fragments will mostly be visible only in the early morning sky.

Anyway, if you can get to some dark skies then you can find fragment C if you know where to look. The fragments are currently moving thru the Constellation Hercules, but they are moving quite fast. They will be out of Hercules in a couple days heading across the Milky Way for Pegasus.

Some astronomers thought this comet would be more visible, but they did not figure on the fragments breaking up as fast as they are. Though this comet is big news in the science (especially astronomy) world, it just isn't noteworthy to the general public.

Thanks for the welcome!

Am in the process of getting a telescope, don't ask just one my kids and I can see the stars thru. Want to give them a chance to learn as much about the sky as they can because their generation is going to more involved in space exploration than ours is.

I hope that we do get the meteor showers as it would be a great thing to watch. Just hope that nothing big actually does collide. Not a big buy in to the whole doomsday thing but I know the possibility is always there.

[edit on 4-5-2006 by iggster]

Originally posted by iggster
Am in the process of getting a telescope, don't ask just one my kids and I can see the stars thru. Want to give them a chance to learn as much about the sky as they can because their generation is going to more involved in space exploration than ours is.

Just don't buy them one of the crappy ones from a general store that say, "8000X power!" or "See the rings of Saturn! *insert cropped Hubble image*" on the box, because they will be utter crap and you and yours will be TOTALLY disappointed! Not to mention out the 50-120 bucks one of those hunks of junk cost!

Now, if you want a good scope for just about ANYTHING is would suggest an O rion SkyQuest XT8 IntelliScope. We have a couple of those at the observatory I work at and they're wonderful for viewing the Moon (buy a Lunar filter, trust me!), binary stars, the planets, and deep sky objects (such as nebulae, galaxies, and star clusters).

They run from $479.95 (without the computer to guide you) to $599.95 (with the computer). The computer isn't neccessary at all, if you have a good set of charts and a book teaching you how to use a scope. (A couple other things I would highly reccommend picking up, even if you go the computer route.)

Also, don't be disappointed if what you see isn't all that great. Don't expect Hubble or photoquality images in the scope. It won't happen, though what you will see will STILL be beautiful. Also, telescopes can take a lot of practice to get the hang of so the focus may appear to be spot on (even though it's slightly off) and you'll end up with a poor image. Another thing that can lead to a bad image is the sky conditions. Though it may appear to be clear, the "seeing" may in fact be poor. If you can see stars scintillate (or twinkle... I guess someone didn't like singing "Scintillate, scintillate, little star" anymore. ) then the "seeing" isn't that great and you'll get a poor image.

We also have a couple of the O rion SkyQuest XT10 IntelliScopes at the observatory. They're great too, but a bit more expensive that the XT8.

Also, here's a thread that may help you in your purchase:

Astronomy: Telescopes

[edit on 5/4/2006 by cmdrkeenkid]

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
We also have a couple of the O rion SkyQuest XT10 IntelliScopes at the observatory. They're great too, but a bit more expensive that the XT8.

Nice scope, but at that price I think I'll wait for Google Galaxy to come out.

In the wikipedia entry for the comet it's mentioned that NASA sent the CONTOUR probe up to examine it... but the probe 'broke up' shortly after launch. Isn't that the sort of thing that makes conspiracy theorists salivate?

en.wikipedia.org...

"The comet was to be visited by the CONTOUR comet nucleus probe on June 18, 2006. Unfortunately, the probe broke up after the launch making the flyby impossible."

BTW, this minimum possible distance for fragment 3-BD seems intriguing... especially after nasa said nothing could possibly come close. If a major fragment may come closer than advertised... doesn't that mean that smaller debris may be much, much closer than advertised?

Ok...just went to the site you can track the comet and fragments and they are now tracking 65 fragments. That is a bit more than first talked about. site is neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Just don't buy them one of the crappy ones from a general store
.....you and yours will be ... out the 50-120 bucks one of those
hunks of junk cost!

That is so painfully true! We bought our daughter one 2 years ago
for Christmas. $120. Can't even see through the freak'n scope.
The hole is too small. What we manage to see is junk too.

Don't ever buy a 'telescope' at Toys R Us, WalMart, etc.
Spend the $$ and get a real one.

Well, i hope after all is said and done, the only way to see this would have been with a good telescope!

I agree, i cant even see the craters on the moon on a clear night!

It's been almost five days now and they still haven't changed that table!

NEO Earth Close-Approaches

Object: 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3-BD
Close-Approach Date: 2006-May-11 21:53 ± 11:11
Miss Distance Nominal (LD/AU): 33.7/0.0867
Miss Distance Minimum Ascending(LD/AU): 0.04/0.00010
V relative (km/s):14.79
V infinity (km/s): 14.78
N sigma: 3
H (mag): n/a

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
It's been almost five days now and they still haven't changed that table!

Errr... does this mean you're getting concerned about this? Because if you are concerned, I'm not liking this...

How far is 0.04 Lunar Distances exactly? I'm guessing around 10,000 miles? Please tell me that's plenty of wiggle room.

edit to add: Could someone also please tell me the size of this fragment? I can't find it on the nasa charts.


[edit on 5/8/2006 by mythatsabigprobe]

I hope this doesn't mean it has already begun...


www.kfoxtv.com...

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
Errr... does this mean you're getting concerned about this? Because if you are concerned, I'm not liking this...

No, I'm still not really concerned. I was just making an observation, that's all. After all, the nominal miss distance is the place it'll most likely go.

Originally posted by crt
I hope this doesn't mean it has already begun...

No, as I said in this thread or the other (a bit hard to keep track of which is which), the Eta Aquarids are going on. They're caused from the Earth passing through the stream of debris left by Halley's Comet. They're winding down now, but their peak is around May 6th. So it was probably one of those.

Here's an image of a meteor going by a piece of the comet.


The comet chunk is in the center of the frame, while the meteor is the white streak.

[edit on 5/8/2006 by cmdrkeenkid]

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
I doubt if even bunkers would work, to be honest. You would have the shock wave traveling through the ground, like in an earthquake. You would get the surface wave (unless you were deep enough, but I think that that would have to be a few miles, if not deeper) and then you would get the internal wave echoing around inside the Earth. Either way, if the impact were strong enough, the quakes would probably crush you.

Really? Do you think something like NORAD could survive if very far away from the impact (like the other side of the planet) . It sits on massive shock absorbers to help absorb the impact of a nuclear hit.

If it was anywhere close to NORAD im sure it would be game over nukes would be like a firecracker compared to a large comet impact. I always assumed nuclear bunkers would be able to survive if far enough away from the impact.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
And Jupiter has taken millions, if not billions, over the years for us.

Good old Jupiter

Its like our solar systems all star center fielder catching all those impacts for us.

Don't forget, NORAD has more than one underground / protected bunker "that we are aware of". (ie: North-Bay, Ontario, Canada. One of these would survive i'm sure.

I keep reading in these threads about the "What ifs" of an impact from this comet. This comet is not a threat to the earth and never was. There is only the possibility of a meteor shower from it.

Before the comet even split, it was only 1100 meters in diameter. Now that it has split into thousands of fragments, the fragments are small enough to pose no serious threat to the earth.

On the other hand, there is an Asteroid by the name of Apophis that is calculated to pass a mere 20,000 miles from the earth on April 14, 2029. This asteroid is 320 meters and poses a considerable threat.

Now, saying that an asteroid is 23 years away and will miss the earth by 20,000 miles and there is nothing to worry about is like saying that a bullet has been fired in your direction but there is nothing to be worried about. The bullet is still a mile away and we've carefully calculated the trajectory of this bullet...it's going to miss your scalp by at least 1/4 of an inch. You have little to worry about.

NASA states that they have calculated the trajectory of this asteroid Apophis so precisely that they are 99.9% certain that it won't hit us. Now to give you an idea of the precision involved....This asteroid is moving thru space at an average speed of about 50,000 Kilometers per hour or 1.4 million centimeters per second. In the next 23 years, there are about 700 million seconds until this object nears the earth. This object is slated to miss the earth by 20,000 miles or 32,400 kilometers or 3.2 billion centimeters. Now that you have all of these numbers, if they miscalculate the speed of this thing moving at 1.4 million centimeters per second by a mere 5 centimeters per second, then....well, I'll leave that to your imagination.

The next time that this asteroid comes close enough that astronomers get a good look at it will be late 2012 and early 2013 when they will be able to gage it better. There has been suggestions made by a group called B12 that NASA should at least fasten a tracking device to this asteroid so that they can track it more precisely.

So far, the gameplan is to wait and simply watch it in 2013.

I know that 23 years is a long time away, but this is something to consider if you think you or your kids might live that long.

This is the space object that is known that we should all be concerned about.

can someone please tell me when the meteor showers going to happen, date and time (if you can aswell, time in grenwich mean time)

There was an article in Astronomy about Apophis. Frightening stuff. If it misses in '29, it might still pass through a 'resonance keyhole' which will put it on a collision course for '32.

The ETA on the possible meteor showers, if any, will start between May 11 until possibly June 5th.

Because of the fragmentation, NASA doesn't really have precise data on where these fragments will end up.

We'll just have to wait and see, we can't do anything about it anyway.