Comet Elenin Continues to Increase in Size

reply to post by Julie Washington


I used the most current orbital elements from the JPL Small-Body Database. Inputing those into my copy of Starry Night Pro 6, you can plot the orbit and make observations from various times and locations. I imagine you could do the same thing with Celestia, which is a free software with similar functions.

This comet stuff has made me nervous lately. Comet Elenin, Comet Honda, Comet, Levy, what gives?!

So as Elenin's "tail" "coma" continues to grow I have learned some facinating new data.

Comets are negatively charged.

The Sun is positively charged.

As they near each other possibilities of the comet exploding increase (such as in Haley's comet).

The longer the comet's orbit the more the negative charge builds. Comet Elenin has an extremely long orbit.

A comet is a negatively charged object moving through the extensive and constant radial electric field of the positively charged Sun (see below). A comet becomes negatively charged during its long sojourn in the outer solar system. As it speeds into the inner solar system, the increasing voltage and charge density of the plasma (solar "wind") cause the comet to discharge electrically, producing the bright coma and tails.

Holoscience.com

Now this is were it gets interesting.

When the comet passes Earth and Earth enters the debris field from the Comet's coma it can cause all kinds of problems.

This will occur around September 27th, 2011.

But a period of 38,000 years Implies a very negative charge. This could produce events like the Chicago fire, New Madrid earthquake or Tunguska. This could be a problem for the electric grid we depend on. Also printed circuits could melt locally. These events have all been within 200 years. They are common. They appear to be the result of comet fragments. Without the grid, modern cities could be problematic at best. Without printed circuits most vehicles are just pieces of useless metal. This event will probably be a big yawn, I hope. But I will avoid L A. and other large cities if this comet doesn't change course. I've discussed this with a couple of EU insiders who both think this COULD be a problem.

The solar system has a positive [the sun] and negative [heliopause]. As a comet moves away from the sun it slowly becomes negatively charged. As it reaches aphelion [greatest distance from the sun] it is moving very slowly. It has been decelerating the entire outward trip. The longer this comet lingers, the more negative it becomes. After aphelion, the comet starts to accelerate towards the sun. Slowly at first. During this slow acceleration the comet is still balancing it's charge with the negative environment. I assume that at some point on the inward leg the comet would actually be balanced with the electrical environment.

Thunderbolds Elenin Forum

I found the forum over there a very good read and recommend it!

reply to post by Moxiaty


Google seems to have found it. Just go to www.google.com... Click on constellations. Now click on Leo. Click on infrared. May have to zoom out a little w/wheel-mouse. Look for a black rectangle. Center it on your screen by click and drag and then zoom in slowly. May have to recenter as you zoom. Looks like they're trying to hide something, but you can definitely see a heat signature trailing from within the blacked out area. Do comets show red on infrared? Shouldn't they show up as blue?

Here's a screenshot of what I'm seeing (Just downloaded Jing - I hope it works):
screencast.com...

Originally posted by SparkyJP
Google seems to have found it.
Looks like they're trying to hide something...

I've got a better idea.
Get out from behind your keyboard, buy a telescope, learn astronomy and see the bloody thing for yourself.
Many amateur astronomers have done exactly that.

Here is a link to a random amateur astronomy message forum where people are DOING, not TALKING.
CloudyNights


or... you could be lazy and invent a conspiracy by staying in your bedroom and just surfing the internet.

Originally posted by SparkyJP
reply to post by Moxiaty

 

Google seems to have found it. Just go to www.google.com... Click on constellations. Now click on Leo. Click on infrared. May have to zoom out a little w/wheel-mouse. Look for a black rectangle. Center it on your screen by click and drag and then zoom in slowly. May have to recenter as you zoom. Looks like they're trying to hide something, but you can definitely see a heat signature trailing from within the blacked out area. Do comets show red on infrared? Shouldn't they show up as blue?

Here's a screenshot of what I'm seeing (Just downloaded Jing - I hope it works):
screencast.com...

Uh, for one, that's in Virgo.

For two, that's a glitch left over from when the IRAS, whose survey Google Sky uses for Infrared, photographed Saturn twice over the course of several hours.

reply to post by ufoinquirer


I would like to suggest that another reason this astronomer may not be speaking is how maniacal these "elitists" are with their reputation for strongly being able to have peoples lips shut up tighter than a frogs arse.Uknow..

Originally posted by amywood71605
This comet stuff has made me nervous lately. Comet Elenin, Comet Honda, Comet, Levy, what gives?!

Here is a list of comets discovered in the past year as assigned by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center

There's 105 of them from just the past year - and that's just comets. Several hundred asteroids are discovered every year. There is nothing unusual about this. Discoveries of comets & asteroids in our solar system happen all the time.

Every so often, some attention-whore tries to make a hooplah over them, and the gullible conspiretards, doom-sayers & apocalypse-wishers just gobble it up.

The IAU/MPC publish orbital elements for every single one of them. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can use this information to generate an ephemeris and use telescopes to track them. That is real research. Looking at Google-Sky and confabulating conspiracies & cover-ups is not.

reply to post by Julie Washington


You didn't really want to believe some nonsense spewed by a website calling itself "holoscience", did you? Just random crap made up by know-nothings on the Web? Like, this:

Comets are negatively charged.

The Sun is positively charged.

As they near each other possibilities of the comet exploding increase (such as in Haley's comet).

Total rubbish.

And, where oh where is the credible scientific information that Halley's Comet "exploded"?? Odd, nothing like that, at all, is in the historical records.

Finally....WHY are some people so woefully, woefully misinformed regarding astronomy in general and comets in particular? Comets, especially, seem to drive people batty, through centuries of appearances.....causing irrational fear, and affecting the Earth in NO WAY at all.....

Cometophobia (Yeah, surprised me too, it seems to be a real word....).

reply to post by weedwhacker


Ya know Weedwacker, pretty soon you're gonna wear out your welcome always coming into threads attempting to detrail with your "know it all attitude" when you don't know crap.

That being said...when I wrote Halley I actually meant Holmes. But upon my looking for a "credible" source for you, well we have this:

Although it is often affirmed that the outbursts displayed by comet 17P/Holmes, including the megaburst of 2007, have never been observed in any other comet, I find that about ten weeks after its 1835 perihelion, comet 1P/Halley experienced a similarly massive explosion in late January 1836, at 1.44 AU from the sun, with a peak intrinsic magnitude of at least +0.3,midway between the limits on the outbursts of 17P/Holmes. Predictably, this outburst of Halley's comet accompanied the formation of a disk-shaped, sharply-bounded dust halo, which was steadily expanding at a rate of 0.575 km/s into a feature of nearly-parabolic outlines, very similar in appearance to the halos of 17P/Holmes in 1892-1893 and 2007. The 1836 episode of Halley's comet and its aftermath thus compare favorably with the 17P/Holmes events in all respects.

Harvard.edu

Negative Ions and Electrons:

Here we report the detection of a new component of the inner coma of comet Halley: negatively charged cometary ions...

Nature.com

Secondly, I am not here spreading any fear. I am trying to share credible information about this comet whereas other threads are spreading fear.

I am also not an astronomer and am learning as I go. I try to share factual rather than sensational information.

AND I really don't care for your condescending remarks. So quit spreading your rubbish here or be courteous enough to post a correction with a source if I has mistated something wrong.

Also to be clear: This comet is NOT going to collide with the Earth.

What makes this comet special is it's incredibly long orbit.

This is a learning experience for all. This could turn out to be a dud or it could turn into an incredible display visible hopefully by binoculars.

This is a wait and see what happens as the "coma" gets bigger. The bigger the coma the bigger the show it might put on for us.

reply to post by Julie Washington


The hyperbolic orbit is the most interesting thing to me as well. Mind you, it's not that rare - Hale-Bopp and Ikeya-Seki come to mind as two examples of this type of comet. The hyperbolic orbit implies that this object may not have formed in this solar system at all. It could have formed elsewhere, had an encounter with one of its home-system gas giants and been ejected via gravitational slingshot.

Who knows how long this thing has been wandering through deep-interstellar space? It may be billions of years older than our solar system.

reply to post by Julie Washington


Elenin is on it's way back out of the solar system.
On it's 10 000 year orbit.

astrobiology.nasa.gov...

Elenin is on it's way back out of the solar system.

reply to post by tomten


No. It is on it's way into the solar system.
Elenin Orbit Diagram
As you can see, it will be closest to earth around Oct 18th.

If you reread that article you posted you will see that the question part has some incorrect data but the answer part is correct.

Originally posted by tomten
reply to post by Julie Washington

 

Elenin is on it's way back out of the solar system.
On it's 10 000 year orbit.

astrobiology.nasa.gov...

No where in this article does it say "Elenin is on it's way back out of the solar system".

Please do not post dis-information, it's really not helpful to anyone.

Actually it's a well written little fluff piece that dispells all the conspiracy theories, although it is not very detailed. But the statements in the article are correct as we know them today.

Comets can be a bit unpredictable and the orbital and size calculations can change as it gets closer to Earth. The link in the OP is the best one to monitor for updates.

reply to post by Julie Washington


Interpretations are important.

In the story from the 19th century passing of Halley's comet....any "explosion" comments are more readily attributable to the changes in the comet's nucleus as a result of its near approach to the Sun....NOT from "electricity", but from HEAT!! Primary component of comet nuclei is ice. Heat + ice = steam, eventually.

(Or, pressure build-up of some sort, if not "steam" in the exact sense...in a vacuum, even minor pressure differences can be significant).

Besides....we're talking about the early 19th century, here! Think of the science knowledge, and tool improvements gained, since.


The other Harvard citation? Well....ions negatively charged? Not a big deal, the energies are minuscule.

Look up the definition of an "electron volt".

In any case, the sites that postulate this imaginary "positive/negative" charge build-up are just full of nonsense.

BY THAT SAME "LOGIC"...the planet Mercury (or any of the inner planets), in all its (their) billions of years of orbiting "should" (like comets) "build-up a negative charge".....even IF that happens, the claims of the Sun being some huge "positive" charge lightning rod or something....well, just fantasy. WHY hasn't Mercury "exploded" in 4.5 billion years?

Many comets don't even get as close to the Sun as Mercury, as they orbit.

See...instead of just believing some stuff from some crank website, it helps to learn...and to NOT just take scientific sources (like the one form Harvard) completely out of context. That is a form of "quote mining", and can lead to many incorrect conclusions/assumptions as a result.

show me the teeth. Tho i walk thru the valley of darkness i see no evil.

You know that Planet X Movie coming out in May called "Melancholia"...Wouldn't it be wild if the kid's name in the movie was "Leo"? ...Oh wait, it is... Check it out for yourself. What do you think of this? A "Leo" discovers the killer asteroid in the movie Deep Impact. Another Leo discovers comet Elenin. There is a kid named Leo in this new planet X movie. Comet Elenin is also known as "X1". Comet Elenin will be approaching us from the constellation Leo. The Sphinx which has the body of a Lion (Leo) stares off into the night sky waiting for something to return....

From Graham Hancock: -"we have demonstrated with a substantial body of evidence that the pattern of stars that is "frozen" on the ground at Giza in the form of the three pyramids and the Sphinx represents the disposition of the constellations of Orion and Leo as they looked at the moment of sunrise on the spring equinox during the astronomical "Age of Leo" (i.e., the epoch in which the Sun was "housed" by Leo on the spring equinox.) Like all precessional ages this was a 2,160-year period. It is generally calculated to have fallen between the Gregorian calendar dates of 10,970 and 8810 BC. (op. cit., p.189)"

Ok follow me here.... The comet Elenin is supposed to have an orbital period of 11,830 years. (According to Wikipedia). That would put its last appearance on earth roughly in the vicinity of time when the Sphinx was said to have been built. Of course we can't be sure of the exact date of either, but they are close.

A lot to think about.... One more coincedence... The release date for the movie Melancholia is May 26th. "Comet" Elenin will be closest to earth on September 26th.

I read this article last night. I may be wrong, but I think they mean that it appears to be growing because it's position is head on and keeping the majority of the coma hidden behind the comet. I'm not sure though.

Also.. I'm more concerned with comet Honda honestly.
A comet we've known about for 60 years is coming .06 or .05 au's distance from earth and it hasn't been mentioned at all to my knowledge in the news as of recent. Oh and honda is 1.6 kilometers in diameter.

reply to post by hereitcomesskippy

"Comet" Elenin will be closest to earth on September 26th.

That is incorrect.

Comet Elenin will be closest to earth on Oct 17th.
Check for yourself.
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...