Holmes comet grows bigger then the SUN

there seems to be some confusion on whats happened. the comet hasnt physically increased in size, but rather it has ejected a large dust cloud that is now being illuminated by the sunlight so it looks extradordinarily bright

As of 2007 November 9, the coma, the dust ball around the comet, will briefly be the largest (in size, not mass) object in our solar system, with a diameter greater than that of the Sun.

Based on orbital computations and luminosity before the 2007 outburst, the comet's nucleus was estimated at 3.4 km

The cause of the outburst is not definitely known. The huge cloud of gas and dust may have resulted from a collision with a meteoroid, or, more probably, from a build-up of gas inside the comet's nucleus which eventually broke through the surface

so if anything the actual comet is SMALLER now, since i has released so much material.

click here and view the pictures of the progress during the outburst..
en.wikipedia.org...

I just saw it for the first time last night and it is huge - the biggest and brightest thing in the sky besides the moon. Much bigger in apparent size than any star. I live in the midwest US and saw it about 4am about due east and maybe 35 degrees above the horizon.

I was surprised, because I thought I had seen it a few weeks back when everyone was talking about it, but it did not seem that impressive or I was looking at the wrong object.

Why is it that people don't read the whole post?

The dust cloud (Coma) is what makes it larger than the sun... however, if you were to compare mass, it's probably no bigger than half our moon.

Theres nothing here to fear. Outside of that...


The fact that the coma is so large can mean a couple of things,
either this body has passed through some rather heavy gravitational fields lately (ie, another solar system)... or it has been traveling for a VERY long time with respect to other comets we've viewed.