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:
From what angle are these shots taken from? From this perspective it appears the comet is quite large compared to the sun…
See – owe to Rich says:
November 29, 2013 at 11:46 am
what happened to that coma? Electrical or not electrical?
The coma is primarily water and some dust. The Water is destroyed by photodissociation: H2O + 2 photons (light) → 2 e- + 2 H+ + O. The protons and electrons are charged and can be picked up by the expanding corona and carried away. Also, simply light pressure plays a role in pushing the coma away. In addition, it is HOT so close to the Sun.
lsvalgaard says:
November 29, 2013 at 11:36 am
French_Atkins says:
November 29, 2013 at 11:34 am
Sorry if you still think that my “ignorance runs deep”…
You just demonstrated more of it…
GAME OVER
French_Atkins says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:06 pm
GAME OVER
You throwing in the towel is accepted. Have a nice day.
@_Jim
> The facts are before us; if you insist on disputing them further
What facts? I didn’t dispute your ‘1982’ claim. “CO2-Rich” did. And he was right.
All I did was to give you a more credible date: 1871. Are you disputing that?
Your snarky responses have brought on these retributions. Again you seem to blame others for things you failed to do. You really don’t see that do you?
😐
In A Comparison Between Comets ISON and Lovejoy (2011) Roy Spencer posts the SOHO LASCO C3 vid with the comet ISON (or whats left) swinging out from the sun.
You conveniently omitted..
Yes, but for clarity, not obfuscation. I’m not going to quote a whole paper for 1 sentence.
Your reply strikes me I’m correct with my debye shielding is a crucial point that makes EU theory plausible. You seem to be trying confound me with irrelevant detail and flawed logic.
I’ll dissect everything you wrote…
The Debye length in the solar wind and interstellar space is very small, of the order of 10 meter.
No problem for the EU case. electrodynamics and plasma are extremely scalable. Microscopic and even some nanoscopic plasma structures are mimicked by macro and cosmological structures. There’s no reason the functionality of the shield will be impaired at this scale.
And you gloss over the “localized space charge regions”.
What specifics do think need unglossing?
This means that the must be a process that maintains the separation.( of a double layer )
Yup. Tis the case with most if not all double layers. I know cos the EU guys said so. still no prob so far.
Furthermore…
? You haven’t pointed out any flaw so far so this adverb is inappropriate.
if there is a large potential drop, any charge would be propelled rapidly across the double layer shorting out the imbalance, unless the separation process continues.
( For strong double layers which your argument seems to suit more… )
…No, not just any charge. It would need have unusually high KE to overcome the potential barrier. But this does happen, indeed its how the potential builds up in the 1st place.
The potential barriers are ( counter intuitively if you’ve only studied electrostatics ) in the direction such that charge separation is maintained, not shorted.
And indeed, since plasma double layers are mostly, if not always, only a feature of dynamics, then the causal process is assumed to always continue. If it stops then electro-static forces become dominant and all connected charge separation is shorted out.
So far, still nothing to discredit debye shields in space.
Charge separation can happen if the plasma is moved across a magnetic field
Yup, electromagnetic induction.
It can also happen if 2 different materials are in dynamic contact, such as rubbing or particle collision.
Still everything ok with debye shields in space.
but since in a space plasma far from stationary magnetic fields [like the Earth’s] the magnetic field is frozen into the plasma [as Alfvén taught us] it does not move across any field and separation does not occur.
Ah, the magic wand of ‘frozen magnetic fields’ .
a.) You use it to say magnetic induction via Earth’s field fails to maintain a debye shield. Well guess what? My material contact rational for charge separation doesn’t require use of magnetic induction, so your argument has no bearing on mine.
b.) Alfven didn’t like his frozen magnetic field concept, he later described it as “pseudopedagogical”. And he didn’t accept the ideas that arise from strict adherence to frozen mag fields, such as magnetic reconnection. Which all electrical engineers agree is tripe. Only astronomers with there black holes, dark matter and zoo of exotic never detected particles and fields can accept such fiction.
c.) the magnetic field of Earth disagrees with you. There are charge separated regions in Earth’s magnetosphere.
So, even Leif, the Arch enemy of the EU, has nothing to discredit debye shields all over the cosmos. And you didn’t stress alfven’s last sentence in that quote, for bad reason it seems.
In the laboratory, double layers have been studied for half a century, but their importance in cosmic plasmas has not been generally recognized.”
The great man was right. Now the EU community recognizes there importance.
lsvalgaard says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:08 pm
French_Atkins says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:06 pm
GAME OVER
You throwing in the towel is accepted. Have a nice day.
Thanks, you too. And whatever you do, please don’t stop throwing out your proverbs, poetry, pleonasms and platitudes. It makes a nice change from serious science.
Hand-wavers simply wave their hands more (until flight is achieved as they leave the surface of the planet); how productive is that in a debate (literally: time and time again simple, yet incorrect assertions are made seirally … is this meant to ‘wear down’ the opposition, like CAGW accolades appear to do to skeptics)?
Even the ‘elementary physics’ they (wand wavers) cite they do not understand let alone know how it ‘works’. The beginnings of a proper education can be had though, at no cost to me (as contrasted with the case where I were to be involved in so-called on-line ‘debate’) by surveying the MIT physics courses available 24/7 on-line. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/
Maybe minds are ‘polluted’ with the this ‘Electric Universe’ stuff; perhaps an intervention is required? See: Electric Universe: Making Electric Fields
I excerpt, for education purposes only, the following:
French_Atkins says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:33 pm
lsvalgaard says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:08 pm
French_Atkins says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:06 pm
GAME OVER
You throwing in the towel is accepted. Have a nice day.
Thanks, you too. And whatever you do, please don’t stop throwing out your proverbs, poetry, pleonasms and platitudes. It makes a nice change from serious science.
++++++++++++++++
And just where do you think this comment might take you ?, back into the realm of science ?,you didn’t present any.
You had your dictionary opened to the “p” section, by the looks of your comment ?
meemoe_uk says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:25 pm
The great man was right. Now the EU community recognizes there importance.
Real science has moved on and it seems that the EU is stuck. Nothing you have said makes any sense, but this is nothing new.
French_Atkins says:
November 29, 2013 at 12:33 pm
And whatever you do, please don’t stop throwing out your proverbs, poetry, pleonasms and platitudes.
You earn them.
ISON ISOFF ISON again!
This looks like a comet to me,
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/
It appears Comet ISON has survived after all.
No wonder viewpoints expressed contained such artful twists; logical thought would seem to be out-of-reach.
BTW, there are variety of observations that could be made to support your ‘contention’ of an ‘Electric universe’, but without a basis in logos and a grounding in science “cheerleaders’ are able to do no more than ‘lead cheers’ and wait a real physicist (an experimental physicist) to make those observations (NOT forthcoming, however, since a negative can’t be proven) for you. The sad part is, you probably have NO idea what those ‘observations’ might entail …
Cheer on then; “Party on Garth!”
.
Wow I’ve had a good 2 days. 1st man on the planet to assert Ison alive and well + I’ve collected 2 scalps, one of them a follower, the other one one of the final bosses – Leif! Think thats the 1st time I’ve defeated Leif in technical argument combat.
Here’s there capitulation statements. I collect them as prizes . 8)
Leif Real science has moved on and it seems that the EU is stuck. Nothing you have said makes any sense, but this is nothing new.
JimHand-waving and filibustering; you have made not any technical points that will withstand serious cross examination.
meemoe_uk says:
November 29, 2013 at 1:17 pm
Here’s there capitulation statements.
Unfortunately for your inflated ego, the two statements still hold. The DK-effect comes to mind:
“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
But despair not, you are joined in company by many others of many stripes.
Then, there lies the problem …
To paraphrase Arthur Laffer: “If you treat all your constants as variables then your thinking is bound to be screwed up.”
.
See – owe to Rich says:
November 29, 2013 at 8:49 am
Was it electrical? How could anything mechanical or thermodynamic explain the extreme rapidity?
Regarding the dissipation of the comet’s substance.
I am still thinking all the time: maybe no dissipation, but coincidence with a CME.
There were several CME’s going on before and after (my layman’s interpretation of the video’s), so the chance for a coincidence was there.
I am not into EU, but I was thinking about the “poof” Anthony talks about: this is very strange, this massive “poof” is completely different from the comets trajectory as if it had no momentum at all, whereas this “poof” has the same direction and speed a CME would have (again: to my layman’s eyes).
lsvalgaard says:
November 29, 2013 at 1:22 pm
““The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude.”
=================
And I always thought my ineptitude was due to being inept.
This opens up whole new world’s to explore !!
u.k.(us) says:
November 29, 2013 at 1:53 pm
“I always thought my ineptitude was due to being inept.
This opens up whole new world’s to explore !!
and scalps and prizes to collect and to enjoy the pleasantries of pseudo-science.
Question: Looking to the SOHO coronagraph movie (in blue) one sees two tails: a sharp narrow tail above and a tail spreading out below. According to Phil Plait, http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/11/27/comet_ison_still_alive.html, the ion tail is above (narrow tail) and the dust tail is underneath (spreading out). Is he right?
I thought it was the opposite. The dust tail follows the path of the comet head and the ion tail is blown back by the solar wind.
rikgheysens says:
November 29, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Is he right? I thought it was the opposite. The dust tail follows the path of the comet head and the ion tail is blown back by the solar wind.
He is right. But very close to the Sun where the speed is so high, the dust tends to ‘lag’ a bit so the dust tail makes an angle to the orbit.
Leif, The Universe is made of Electric, No Leif shut up and listen, meemoe_uk asserted that the comet survived the swing around the sun using near real-time observations, obviously this is solid proof of the Electric Universe theory, you know… that whole connection between meemoe_uk and comets. /jk
Any object that has been in deep space for 4.6 Billion yEars will accumulate alot of ice and like your freezer accumulates ice over time. still hope myself i think alot of people wont see it due to chemtrails
Ok, onto the tails…
Is it only me in the whole world that can spot this one? or only me on WUWT?
leif said : ” A comet has three tails: an ion tail and two dust tails. The latter lie along the orbit and the former is directed away from the sun. So close to the sun there can be, and often is, a large angle between the two. This is quite normal and nothing special. ”
But the new tail on Ison right now aligns neither with the orbit nor radially from the sun. So the conventional theory has failed.
What say ye Leif? Need my explanation?, or can you wriggle out of this one yourself? Note that ‘dust tail lagging a bit’ doesn’t explain what were seeing right now.
I am not into EU, but I was thinking about the “poof” Anthony talks about: this is very strange, this massive “poof” is completely different from the comets trajectory as if it had no momentum at all, whereas this “poof” has the same direction and speed a CME would have
That was the Comet’s debye shield being popped, which released all its plasma in its corona. Of course plasma is so spare that once it is free it is blown around effortlessly by any force.
Also the electric discharge may have atomized some of the comets rocky surface into a vapour.