Story submitted by Robert Bateman
In just a few hours from now, NASA rolls the STEREO BEHIND solar satellite to have a look at Comet Elenin (P/2010 X1), and if you haven’t been paying attention, it is one red hot topic topped with wilder imaginations, dooms, hypotheticals and omens than previously imagined.
From being on a par with/substitute for Niburu to a first ever hyperbolic (>1) cometary orbit, you’d be hard pressed to make the relevant data up. Perihelion somewhat around Sept 11, 2011 (maybe they changed it, maybe not) and origin from the Oort Cloud to an interstellar rogue object. Composition unknown.
Trajectory of comet Elenin. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
So, stay tuned: NASA is about to roll the cameras. Ready or not, here comes P/2010 X1 – yELEveN INe
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tobyglyn: LOL.
We better get those pesky Triffids under control before then…
I just ‘briefly’ read a couple of the conspiracy theory sites about Comet Elenin — LOL, one says its really a neutron star and it will destroy most of the earth when it is on its path out, all but the underground city secretly built under the Denver airport. Another says it is shielding an alien invasion fleet in its tail…
Good stuff.
Earth has never been hit, at least in 4.0 billion years, by a big comet, which can be over 100 kms across and carry more speed and, hence energy, than an asteroid or meteorite. We’ve been lucky because an impact of a comet that big would have likely destroyed all life.
The biggest impact that we can find evidence for was Vredefort, a chondrite asteroid, 10 to 15 kms across, 2.0 billion years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vredefort_crater
looks a bit close to Mercury in some of its travels?
doesnt have to Hit us to manage some nasty upsets does it.
roll it . . . . cosmic dice?
John
No images between 08UT to 10UT released yet, and this might have something to do with it:
T Aug 04 (216) Behind: 480 kbps downlink on station 14
But then images of the Sun are currently downloading, so I hope they got something for the roll.
Stereo is still pointed at the Sun.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/beacon/beacon_secchi.shtml
BTW, for the first time, we can see the whole Sun at the same time (except the poles).
“Earth has never been hit, at least in 4.0 billion years, by a big comet”
We don’t know that. It’s quite possible that an object that large hit Earth long enough ago that the damage has been covered up by subsequent changes to the surface. What if an impact occurred over deep ocean, and any crust deformation was subducted when that ocean closed?
Jean Meeus says:
August 1, 2011 at 12:53 am
Thanks for the additional info. My memory isn’t perfect. I haven’t thought about it much since Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake.
Bill Marsh says:
August 1, 2011 at 6:48 am
Let’s hope there aren’t more Applewhites and Heaven’s Gate types out there.
Thanks Robert, awesome story.
Perhaps the arrival of Elenin explains the sudden upswing of sunspots over the past few days? 🙂
Surely a hyperbolic trajectory could be altered in the course of passage through the solar system?
Nebiru , aka Nemesis is now called Tyche
jorgekafkazar
August 1, 2011 at 12:09 am
” … instead of global warming, which is socialist science fiction.”
###
Your confusing Science Fantasy with Science Fiction. In Science Fiction, the science comes first. There are rules to this genre. In Science Fantasy, any thing goes.
More justification for me to get a new telescope.
In reference to the posts regading age of last large strikes: Does anyone have updated info regarding the theory of a large planetoid striking Earth and in the disruption having a proto-lunar flung into orbit?
Iam, August 1, 2011 at 3:18 am
Let’s hope you have a dream about proper punctuation.
Jeff:
Be kind—Iam’s keyboard is truncated, and his three character rows don’t extend past “p”, “l” and “m”.
There is a lot of paranoid buzz on the internet and it is scaring a lot of people who follow pseudo-science and conspiracy websites. The latest being that Elenin has charged itself with an overdose of electrons gathered from deep space and with discharge them into the Sun (or to Earth) causing havoc!
However, all may not be plain saling ahead. Bill Illis….you say its millions of years since Earth has had a significant hit……not necessarily so, there is strong (and disputed) geological evidence of a dust-ball comet impact about 13,000 years ago with huge damage to the northern hemisphere – with massive forest fires and tidal inundation.
I don’t understand how trajectories can be computed so accurately before the object has been properly observed – presumably the mass has been worked out?
What is the uncertainty in eccentricity for these objects?
Peter Taylor says:”I don’t understand how trajectories can be computed so accurately before the object has been properly observed – presumably the mass has been worked out?”
They can’t. IIRC from my determination of orbits class, a hyperbolic orbit is so close to linear on a star plate that determination of the orbital elements (a, e, i, node, omega and t) is tricky until you get a longer look, which I believe is now the case. The BEHIND fly-by should give even better elements. Be sure to read Ric Werme’s comment, above.
alan says: “I like that phrase!” (global warming is socialist science fiction)
Thanks, Alan:
DesertYote says: “[You’re] confusing Science Fantasy with Science Fiction.”
I’ve written in both genres, they overlap, and, yes, AGW could be considered either one. It’s fiction.
Ulrich Elkmann says: “Who on Earth (sit venia verbo) names an asteroid “Damocles”?”
You know the answer. Someone with a classical background like you, who remembers that Damocles was the ancient king with a heavy object dangling over his head by a hair. Most appropriate if you’re living at the bottom of a big gravity well with stuff flying overhead, not even a hair to hold it.
Geoff Sharp says:
August 1, 2011 at 8:36 am
Perhaps it is a rogue object (a possibliity) from another star system, composition unknown.
If it is something like a chunk of neutron star or small singularity it could have an effect on close passage, but then it should also exhibit gravity lensing to a small degree. I’m not qualified to state that a chunk of neutron star or small singularity is even possible. Anyway, I would think that such determination would require HST.
First, we need to see some data from BEHIND.
Anybody have an idea of when NASA will release images?
Robert of Ottawa says:
August 1, 2011 at 8:01 am
The spacecraft was presumably rolled back just before 10:00 UT.
Examine the images for 08/01/2011 here:
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/images
Select all the BEHIND instruments, put in 20110801 for the Start Date, select 512×512 res., check list on Display and hit the Search Button.
You will see a gap in the lists for 08:00 to 10:00 UT.
Johndoe says:
August 1, 2011 at 5:03 am
I wonder how close it will pass to Mercury?
Run the applet here: http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/STEREOorbit/C2010_X1.html
50 million miles, roughly, with Mercury mostly on the opposite side of the Sun in it’s orbit.
jorgekafkazar: “someone with a classical background…” Indeed, but since the Damocloids do not seem to include any Apollo objects (i.e. crossing Earth’s orbit), the name still seems somewhat misapplied.
Dan in California: “Let’s keep our copies of Rendezvous With Rama handy”. You mean there will be sequels, but conceived by Gentry Lee, not Sir Arthur? An unsettling prospect.
As for rules to the game of SF: not very often (“playing with the net up”, as Gregory Benford put it, limits the gamut of exicting storytelling nastily), but if they are used, they are applied to astronomy and physics, less to sociology, never to economics. Sometimes this results in SF writers censoring other writers for astronomical illiteracy. There have been some green comets in SF (Wells’ ‘In the Days of the Comet’, 1906; Jack Williamson’s ‘The Cometeers’, 1936, etc.), and those have been singled out as glaring examples, since NOTHING in space is green. Cue comet McNaught 2007