Comet Elenin is coming!

ngchunter

Please, please give us all a break. Being new to this site, and open to exploring as much as I can, I am disappointed to find the same scientific rhetoric about 'facts' being displayed in a way that is not only condescending, but downright arrogant.

I have, only over few days, read nearly all Putterman's posts and can honestly say that he is one of the most easy to understand contributors to this site. Maybe that is because I am a layman, and therefore not smart enough to engage in a conversation with a 'scientist' - who knows. But it only takes a few hours of study, for a truly bright person, to understand that much of scientific 'fact' is, in reality, incorrect. Its always been this way and it is why we all continue to learn.

Some of the absolute fundamentals that are considered fact, are only theories that work well to support an observation. Even experimental science, rather conveniently, makes use of constants (which are not actually constants), to fit theories to observations. In our journey to understand the universe, and what a journey it is, we are but 'babes in the wood'. It would be wise to acknowledge that.

You say that asteroids cannot be asteroids above a certain mass. Its fact, right? And irrefutable? May I ask why? Is it not scientists that classified this? Tell me about Pluto's classification please... why is it that it is no longer considered to be a planet? Perhaps our facts were wrong, or we just decided to change our classifications?

Here is a link for you on some other thinking to emphasise my point on challenging the known facts - this one I find very interesting because it challenges the whole notion of the earth's wobble (used to explain the precession of the equinox). Not totally relevant to this thread (although it could be if you think hard enough ), but a good one to underline my point about the fallacy of scientific fact. There are many others, including Putterman's electric comet discussions.

Binary Reserach Institute

I genuinely do not mean to be rude, but please try and be a little more open before jumping in and shouting about facts.

Originally posted by ngchunter

Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by ngchunter

 

No, I was always right because it was always going to pass by the earth just as I said for the reasons that I said.

But you cannot claim that until after the event. Until such time it remains a highly probable prediction. Is there some problem with understanding that?

I can claim it any time I like, the only question is whether or not the evidence supports that conclusion. Again, what you're trying to argue for is not to accept any conclusion no matter how strong the evidence. That's just ridiculous.

Claiming something doesn't mean your right. Puterman is correct, you have provided ZERO links to back up anything said but you swear theres an abundance of evidence and demand Links from others. Accept the simple fact that there is a possibility ,no matter how slim it is, the orbit can change or post links to prove that WITHOUT A DOUBT the orbit wont change. Its really that simple what don't you understand?????

Originally posted by Artorius


He says those exact words?? "orbits are no mystery" please show me. I can not find that statement in the article..

I didn't say he said those words. I said them because it's true. Orbital mechanics are not a mystery.

Even in the limited context provided, it is apparent that he was talking about activity on the surface of a comet, not its orbit.

If any comet had ever displayed a significant change it its orbit you would not have to search very hard to find information about it. It would be very big news in the astronomical community.

ok, i'm only 5 pages into reading this thread but something just came to me. i'm gonna post it before i forget. let's say HAARP does do things like control weather/earthquakes/brain waves/etc. what if someone has accurately calculated where a sizable mass does penetrate our atmosphere and hit causing destruction in a specific area of Earth...could it be possible that some of the bigger quakes just recently (Japan/Indonesia) could have been "HAARP induced" creating these slight pole shifts in order to save a certain part of the planet to prevent extinction of a certain area they don't want destroyed or uninhabitable?? the Japan quake caused 3 degrees of a pole shift right? same scenario with the Indonesia quake (3 degree shift) a few years back. i'm just going by memory, i could be wrong with that. both quakes came from the ocean (which i know is common). but still, just figured i'd throw my little theory that just popped in my head out there.

Originally posted by MadMaxZombie the Japan quake caused 3 degrees of a pole shift right?

No. It shifted the Earth's axis by about 6.5 inches (16.51 cm). With a polar circumference around 40,008 km, that amounts to 0.0000004%, or 0.000001 degrees. Not anywhere near 3 inches.

Originally posted by MadMaxZombiesame scenario with the Indonesia quake (3 degree shift) a few years back.

The Sumatra and Chile earthquakes resulted in even smaller shifts of 7 and 8 cm respectively.

reply to post by nataylor


ok, cool. nowhere near enough to affect what i was talking about then...thanks for the info!

reply to post by nataylor


As a matter of interest were those cumulative or did they tend to cancel each other out.

In other words did they all shift it the same way?

Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by nataylor

 

As a matter of interest were those cumulative or did they tend to cancel each other out.

In other words did they all shift it the same way?

I don't know the answer to that. Just a guess, but since the Chile and Sumatra earthquakes were roughly at opposite longitudes, there would be some amount of cancelation going on.

Anyone who can find orbital mechanics 'a blast' has some serious life issues as far as I am concerned.

He isn't the only one who finds orbital mechanics extremely interesting. I have studied the orbital motions of short and long period comets on my home PC for years using a very powerful piece of software called Dance of the Planets (ARC Science Simulations; www.arcscience.com). This takes accurate orbital elements for comets and asteroids, and solves gravitational force equations for their motions. The shorter the time step, the more accurate the simulated orbit. I have always run these simulations as accurately as possible, so I have a good idea what it takes to bend an object's trajectory to this extent. Elenin is a long period comet, which means that it is moving significantly faster than a short period comet (it has more orbital energy, and therefore gravitational perturbations affect it to a lesser extent). I can state with complete confidence that you would need an object considerably larger and more massive than an asteroid to significantly perturb the trajectory of a comet. In fact, Elenin would almost certainly need to pass close to a giant planet like Jupiter or Saturn at this stage to bend it's trajectory sufficiently to allow for a possible Earth impact.

It's worth noting that the closest approach of a long period comet to Jupiter that I know about was C/1760 A1 in November 1758. The true close approach distance is unknown, because the orbital elements have only been calculated for a parabolic orbit (eccentricity = 1.0). This is almost certainly incorrect, so we are dealing with approximations here. However, for the sake of this argument, it is good enough to note how much the comet was deflected by Jupiter's gravity when passing just 100 radii from the planet. That is a distance of approximately 7 million kms, or about 4 times the distance of the outermost Galilean satellite, Callisto (and well inside the orbits of the small, irregular outer satellites)

The comet's perihelion distance (closest approach to the Sun) was changed by less than 0.2AU. That was over a year after the close approach to the largest, most gravitationally significant body in the solar system after the Sun. If you think that an asteroid (even one as large as Ceres; approximately 1000kms in diameter) could deflect Comet Elenin by a greater amount, and over a lesser distance, then I suggest that you think again.

Originally posted by UKTruth
But it only takes a few hours of study, for a truly bright person, to understand that much of scientific 'fact' is, in reality, incorrect.

By all means, prove that orbital mechanics is incorrect. I guess I'm not "bright" enough to realize that. With statements like that I suggest you refrain from calling me arrogant.

You say that asteroids cannot be asteroids above a certain mass. Its fact, right? And irrefutable? May I ask why?

They're not asteroids above a certain mass because then they would no longer fit the definition of an asteroid but would instead be a dwarf planet. An asteroid must, by definiton, be low enough in mass to have not attained hydrostatic equilibrium. Please show me one single example of any body anywhere high enough in mass to gravitationally deflect comet Elenin's orbit onto a collision course with earth, yet it is also too low in mass to reach hydrostatic equilibrium.

Is it not scientists that classified this?

Yes. Words have meaning. If you want to use your own meaning for the word "asteroid" I can't stop you, but don't expect others to accept it or understand you when you use it inconsistently with the accepted meaning. I mean, I can use the word "go-cart" every time I talk about a car, that's my business, but I shouldn't expect others to understand what I'm talking about when I do that.

Tell me about Pluto's classification please...

It's a dwarf planet.

why is it that it is no longer considered to be a planet?

Because it has not cleared out its local area of space of other similarly sized objects.

Perhaps our facts were wrong, or we just decided to change our classifications?

We created a consistent classification system that establishes criteria for determining what objects qualify for what classification. If you wish to ignore that system, that is your business, but again, don't expect others to be able to understand what you're talking about when you pretend it doesn't matter.

Here is a link for you on some other thinking to emphasise my point on challenging the known facts - this one I find very interesting because it challenges the whole notion of the earth's wobble (used to explain the precession of the equinox).

I've read it before and I find it to be in direct contradiction to much stronger evidence indicating that precession is due to lunisolar tidal forces. Their alternative pretends that lunisolar tidal forces should not cause precession. That is flat-out wrong. If they want to put out a theory that tries to fill the small gap (about 7 arcseconds per century) between gravitationally predicted and observed values while retaining lunisolar forces as the causitive force for the rest, that's one thing, but to throw out the lunisolar model altogether is what gets them an F in my book. Known gravitational forces should cause about 5022.58 arcseconds per century of precession. Where is that in their model?

Not totally relevant to this thread (although it could be if you think hard enough

),

If BRI were to ever suggest that comet elenin is secretly our "binary star" they would be put into the same category as Nancy Lieder. At least their claims are... lucid, even if wrong.

Originally posted by Phage

Originally posted by Artorius


He says those exact words?? "orbits are no mystery" please show me. I can not find that statement in the article..

I didn't say he said those words. I said them because it's true. Orbital mechanics are not a mystery.

Even in the limited context provided, it is apparent that he was talking about activity on the surface of a comet, not its orbit.

If any comet had ever displayed a significant change it its orbit you would not have to search very hard to find information about it. It would be very big news in the astronomical community.

edit on 3/18/2011 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Just because you say its true doesn't make it so. That is terrible debating and proves nothing. I can say, "its not a mystery George bush is a reptilian!!!" with no proof to back up my words "I said it so I'm right" doesn't cut it. Your are an esteemed member here whom I respect, but that makes you more accountable to post some evidence with these claims. My point was: we have a NASA expert admitting how mysterious the mechanics of comets really are. Therefore making a statement about what is known being 100% written in stone is somewhat illogical. I apologize for not making that clearer on the previous post.

reply to post by Mogget


Each to his own. Personally I prefer the speed. Much more invigorating! Earthquakes are "extremely interesting" but they are not "a blast"

If you think that an asteroid (even one as large as Ceres; approximately 1000kms in diameter) could deflect Comet Elenin by a greater amount, and over a lesser distance,

I don't think that was what I said.

then I suggest that you think again.

Find the *OFF* switch for the attitude please while you are rooting around in your orbital mechanics.

reply to post by nataylor


Pretty much what I was thinking. So you could say that Japan "corrected" the previous ones possibly.

What I find odd is that the 'scientists' say that all of them made the day shorter. You might expect that to be reversed as well.

Ahh,.
what does this have to do with Elenin?
Not the tread police,... just askin

Originally posted by PuterMan

What I find odd is that the 'scientists' say that all of them made the day shorter. You might expect that to be reversed as well.

That part makes sense as all those quakes happened in subduction zones, meaning more mass was pushed toward the center of the planet. It's like a figure skater in a spin bringing their arms in to increase the rate of rotation.

reply to post by ngchunter


It's perfectly fine to take the position that known facts are the whole truth until something else comes along to create a new truth - that's your choice. It's the position the vast majority of scientists take, and from experience its impossible to shake them loose of those beliefs - so I won't try.

Personally I find that thinking limiting. History proves my point. I guess the only difference is that I accept that what we know today has a significant probability of being wrong, and don't feel the need to wait for new facts to at least question current thinking.

This is why I find it frustrating when someone roles out todays facts with such certainty that it is the final answer. My point is a somewhat philosophical one relating to human nature. Its comforting to believe we have all the facts to hand, it's a little more scary to admit we can't be sure of the answers.

You have not provided much to back up your certainty on this subject, only opinion. That's fine, opinions are important, but they are best positioned with a little more humility

EDIT : You missed entirely my point about Pluto. The new classification system was introduced in 2006 because of new discoveries (objects similar to Pluto). Prior to that point I am sure, given your posts, you would have called it a planet and completely dismissed any notion that it was not. A short time later, you would have been proven wrong.

en.wikipedia.org...

I found this plot of the known asteriods, whose orbits Elenin will pass. Obviously this is a 2D plot and of course not to scale, so not as conjested as shown, but interesting none the less. Again, these are the known asteroids - and I suspect we have only discovered a fraction of them.

Elenin reaches the orbit of Mars on June 25th 2011, shown in the plot as the outer blue circle. It's currently passing through the asteroids shown as green on this plot.

Asteroid plot

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


Just making sure that the earthquakes will/have not made Earth's orbit so unstable that it spins out of control right into the oncoming super-massive dark hole black dwarf comet Elenin that is only 4km across but weighs 10 times as much as Jupiter 'cos if we met that we would be done for!

Citations not accepted!

reply to post by PuterMan


hahahahaha...your a funny one!!

Ok back on topic, I found an interesting article on Elenin. I thought you guys might be interested...

Could be doom. Could be a dud. A 38,000 period comet named Elenin is coming and coming uncomfortably close to the earth at only 0.44 AU. Where 1 AU is the distance of the earth to the sun. And the comet will come in between the sun and the earth. The earth will be bathed in the cometary ion tail. We may be in for spectacular skies. And then there is the possible doom. I’ll tell you why.The possible doom is because the electric universe scientists the past few years have rocked the astronomical sciences. Comets are not just dead and dirty snowballs. Comets are highly negatively charged bodies. With a period of 38,000 years means this comet Elenin is immensely negatively charged. Our sun is the positively charged body this comet is interacting with. This is probably why the sun has been ejecting record CMEs lately. Earthquakes anyone? New Zealand, Japan, tsunamis. But there is more with a comet this highly charged and this near. With comet Elenin this highly charged and this near passing by our planet, there is a real possibility that we could be in for global electrical disruption. Think all of our computers and printed circuit boards being zapped to uselessness… for several days… for several months… requiring new replacements. And these are all in our cell phones, our cars, our factories… total electrical disruption. So there are survivalist calls to prepare to be able to survive without electricity, without electronics. Comet Elenin is here and now, nearest points come October through November 2011. It may be a spectacular humbling sky show. Or it may be a dud. There is nothing anyone on earth can do to prevent the arrival of this comet, so just prepare to be possibly awed.

LINK


Thats the entire article its kind of short but this chap brings up a good point. Many mainstream scientists are starting to accept the "electric universe" theory.... For the record, I hope that none of this happens. My desire would be for it to pass by, give us a nice show, then never see it again for another 10,000 something years