Note: See updates below for the ISON ISOFF ISON nature of this comet that has everybody guessing. Picture at right also updated to reflect the new “zombie” status of this comet.
Looks like ISON has disintegrated during its turn around the sun. Given the radiation (estimated temperature 5,000F/2,760C – hot enough to vaporize rock), solar wind, and the tidal-forces (even though smallish, thanks Gavin) associated with its proximity and nearly 800,000 mph speed around the turn about that time, I’m not surprised. Watch the second video below where it goes “poof” (h/t to reader “David”)
NASA’s spaceweather.com reports:
Comet ISON is making its closest approach to the sun, and evidence is mounting that the nucleus of the comet has disintegrated. Watch the head of the comet fade dramatically as it approaches the sun in this SOHO coronagraph movie:
(may take a minute to load)
![sundiver_anim3[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/sundiver_anim31.gif)
The movie spans a day and a half period from Nov. 27th (01:41 UT) to 28th (15:22 UT). In the early hours of the 27th, Comet ISON brightens dramatically, saturating the pixels in the digital camera of the SOHO’s coronagraph. By mid-day on the 28th, however, the comet’s head appears to fade. This is a sign that the nucleus has likely fallen apart. That would make ISON a headless comet–more appropriate for Halloween than Thanksgiving.
Researchers working with the Solar Dynamics Observatory report that they are seeing nothing along the track that ISON was expected to follow through the sun’s atmosphere.
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UPDATE: Watch it go “poof” here:
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UPDATE2: NASA JPL Insider Amy Mainzer tweets some last minute hope that ISON may be “undead”
http://twitter.com/AmyMainzer/status/406179229487742976
A zombie comet, how cool is that?
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UPDATE3: Now it seems back again, but looking entirely different than before. A number of astronomers indicate they don’t know what is left of it, maybe a chunk, maybe a smooshed drawn out nucleus or something else. Image from SOHO’s coronagraph:
If the comet is really gone, I’m sure Al Gore will blame it on increased levels of CO2 on Earth. ;-))
@leif
oh it’ll be all scattered around in the comet observation archives. Doubt it’s been compiled into a coherent report. Could do with some comet dude with all the data at his fingers to post a time line of exploding comets.
Until then its just something us EU guys know and gravity people deny.
Where is the data that falsifies this?
meemoe_uk says:
November 28, 2013 at 8:51 pm
Doubt it’s been compiled into a coherent report. Could do with some comet dude with all the data at his fingers to post a time line of exploding comets.
so you have no data, just speculation.
Until then its just something us EU guys know and gravity people deny.
Where is the data that falsifies this?
You cannot know anything without data, and EU has been falsified countless times.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 28, 2013 at 7:52 pm
So why did it break up? Heating evaporating subsurface ice and blowing the comet apart?
At least one comet is believed to have broken up without significant solar heating, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.
It broke apart during a pass by Jupiter only 1.3 Jupiter radii away and broke into 21 pieces (or clumps – the comet apparently was very fragile). Then they impacted Jupiter in a event never witnessed before. Better Jupiter than Earth!
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=2003ASPC..291..415W&db_key=AST
https://archive.org/details/SVS-85 (a graphical simulation of a “rubble pile” SL-9.)
The last few seconds of Fernando’s video clip above seems to show that the comet has survived. The imagery suggests that it is at least partially intact and following its intended trajectory around the Sun’s corona.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/28/comet-ison-appears-to-be-toast/#comment-1486797
The total mass of the corona is vanishingly small: 3×10¹⁴kg. In comparison, only 1/10 of the mass of Mount Everest: 3×10¹⁵kg! And only 1/10000th the mass of Earth’s atmosphere: 5×10¹⁸kg.
So there’s not much friction there to cause it to disintegrate or steal its kinetic energy. Yes, the temperature of the corona is a million degrees. But it’s so tenuous that there would be neglible transfer of that heat to much more massive objects like the comet. Nor did it apparently get (completely) vaporized by the radiation from the photosphere (5800K).
😐
Ric Werme says:
November 28, 2013 at 9:41 pm
Heating evaporating subsurface ice and blowing the comet apart?
Very likely, especially if the comet is a ‘rubble pile’. e.g. http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~yelle/eprints/Yelle04a.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 28, 2013 at 7:52 pm
REPLY: Leif I’m not making any claim about speed and tidal forces being connected.
I see, not connected, just associated….
lsvalgaard says:
November 28, 2013 at 10:15 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 28, 2013 at 7:52 pm
REPLY: Leif I’m not making any claim about speed and tidal forces being connected.
I see, not connected, just associated….
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I’ll bet observation trumps on this one.
The comet has survived fully intact, Mr. Watson! Using your basic faculties of observation, you can see the comet plunging toward the sun from over your right shoulder (in the red images) and in front of most of the coronal ejections. Once the comet passes by the sun, it emerges on the backside of all the coronal ejections and is significantly obscured, but considering this fact one can see that the comet has survived virtually unscathed! Elementary, my dear Watson!
What is ISOD’s orientation to us? is it now backlit?
Was it coming toward the sun on the far side of its orbit and past perhelion its proper motion has a component toward Earth?
Java browser ap for ISON.
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=ison;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb
ISON approached the sun near the ecliptic about with an Earth-Sun-ISOD angle of about 45 deg.
Came under the South pole. Now it is departing well north of the ecliptic and toward us somewhat. Earth-Sun-ISOD angle is still about 45-60 degreees. It is partly backlit, but it is hard to see orientation is the reason for the change in brightness.
Comet ISON will forever be known as the zombie comet.
I sure hope it puts on a show in a few days! Man today was a rollercoaster ride of emotions.
Photobucket images of the ISON orbit. Nov. 30, 2013, Earth at far right, Sun at center. See 11:35 pm post.
Normal to Ecliptic ISON rising toward the viewer.
Oblique to Ecliptic, North of Eclipitc Earth on far right moving away from viewer, ISON moving up, right, and away from the viewer.
To the mods/Anthony, would you mind just time and date stamping updates, not just for this article but when updating is required for others as well? Thanks muchly
What’s with the ‘its a snowball’ myth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tempel_Impactor_150Km.jpg
NASA went to all that effort to photograph a comet up close in 2005 and got hard evidence that they are rocks, not ice.
Considering that the msm likes to make a drama out of everything, I’m suprised that there has been no word yet on the potential for the debris from Ison to impact the Earth. Outgassing etc is sure to alter the orbit of any remnants from that which was originally projected.
At least one comet is believed to have broken up without significant solar heating, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.
Comets can suddenly flare up and fragment away from the sun or any planet.
So its not heating, or tidal forces that fragment them
So we have a large hot glowing lump of rock.
Traveling back out from the sun on an altered orbit.
The next few days ARE going to interesting.
OK, that 2nd jet \ tail on its left side is now as big as its trailing tail
As a fellow “astronomo-sceptic”, I totally agree with what meemoe_uk has been saying about an electric interpretation of what is unfolding before us. It will be highly amusing to see the professional astronomers (including “bad” ones…) groggy on the ropes again, as they always are where comets are concerned. As usual, they’ll be groping blindly around in the dark again for the latest ad hoc “explanation” for what is just another in a long line of huge surprises for them (as they did, in particular, with the observational data from the Deep Impact and Stardust missions).
The case is clear: Ison, like the four comet nuclei we have so far actually managed to image from pretty close-up, is not a “dirty iceball” but a big lump of solid rock, which displayed intense discharge phenomena with build-up of increasing voltage difference as it moved rapidly towards the positively charged sun. It seems, as meemoe_uk suggests, that “when ISON flew into the CME it earthed its voltage ( or Suned it ), so the glowing stopped”, a phenomenon which is totally in accordance with the expectations of EU theory but totally inexplicable by mainstream, gravity-only Big Bang theory.
Now that this big lump of rock has emerged on the other side with a fantastic gravity assist and a speed still in excess of 600,000 mph, the charge difference will once again increase very rapidly, the arc-mode discharge phenomenon will probably resume even more powerfully and we are likely to see a truly Great Comet over the coming weeks. But NOT for the “reasons” put forward by mainstream astronomy….
The observational evidence being provided by Ison (along with other comets) is to mainstream astronomy what the 17 year-long Pause is to mainstream CAGW. It’s called falsifying a theory.
ISON, ISOFF, ISONAGAIN…
Schrödinger’s Comet.
But no comet Icarus. It should be Ideadalus. Btw, “Icarus” has already been pinned on asteroid 1566.
Oops. “Idaedalusson”, of course.
Sorry, not “arc-mode discharge phenomenon” but “GLOW-mode discharge phenomenon” (otherwise Ison would disintegrate for sure, as it may still do if the electric stress created by excess voltage difference becomes too great…).
Perhaps if all our predictions end up being wrong, we should examine our theory and assumptions?
I’m always tickled by the quotes from people describing the formation of comets from slow ice and dust accretion. It’s not that it is inherently implausible, it’s just that speculation is not fact just because some guy believes it. The one strong data point we have (Deep Impact / Comet Tempel 1) indicates that comets have a lot more cohesion than previously thought.
For a skeptical site – and one I greatly appreciate – I am always dismayed at the degree of dogmatic assertion accompanied by unexamined assumptions that one reads in comments here, and from some of the smartest and most insightful commenters in other respects.
>UPDATE3: Now it seems back again…
While you’re in an updating mode, you need to go back an update your initial scoop on Ison:
“Spectacular video: Comet ISON imaged from a Langrange [sic] point in space”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/26/spectacular-video-comet-ison-imaged-from-a-langrange-point-in-space/
The referenced satellite imagers, STEREO A and B, are _not_ parked at the Lagrangian points L4 and L5, as reported.