Starship Asterisk*

Frenchy wrote:Is it possible that Comet Lulin could be a pocket of ionizing space?

neufer wrote:The escape of cometary gases between the two halves might force cometary nuclei apart.

neufer wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

aristarchusinexile wrote:I wonder if it's possible for a comet to have two nuclei which 'orbit' each other .. or tumble together, presenting different faces. Any instances of this? If so, this comet could be one of those.

Certainly possible- asteroids like this are known, and in many respects, there is little difference between asteroids and comets. But I don't see anything in the images to suggest that Lulin has anything other than a normal, single-body nucleus. It is compact and point-like in images, and there is no cyclical variability in brightness with time.

The escape of cometary gases between the two halves might force cometary nuclei apart.

Chris Peterson wrote:

aristarchusinexile wrote:I wonder if it's possible for a comet to have two nuclei which 'orbit' each other .. or tumble together, presenting different faces. Any instances of this? If so, this comet could be one of those.

Certainly possible- asteroids like this are known, and in many respects, there is little difference between asteroids and comets. But I don't see anything in the images to suggest that Lulin has anything other than a normal, single-body nucleus. It is compact and point-like in images, and there is no cyclical variability in brightness with time.

aristarchusinexile wrote:I wonder if it's possible for a comet to have two nuclei which 'orbit' each other .. or tumble together, presenting different faces. Any instances of this? If so, this comet could be one of those.

bystander wrote:Follow the fuzzy blob this month as it races westward from Libra to Leo.

neufer wrote:It is hard to image that Lulin could have broken in half without
some sort of dramatic brightening a la Comet Holmes.

aristarchusinexile wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

TEMOHLER wrote:Looking at the two pictures, it looks as though the comet has broken into two parts in the lower picture. Does this look to be true?

As previously noted, this is probably just an illusion caused by motion blur. Images taken a few days later don't show any separation in the nucleus.

I didn't see that other post, my apologies. However, it will be interesting if there are two pieces to that comet. I'm sure it will be watched very closely.

Chris Peterson wrote:

TEMOHLER wrote:Looking at the two pictures, it looks as though the comet has broken into two parts in the lower picture. Does this look to be true?

As previously noted, this is probably just an illusion caused by motion blur. Images taken a few days later don't show any separation in the nucleus.

TEMOHLER wrote:Looking at the two pictures, it looks as though the comet has broken into two parts in the lower picture. Does this look to be true?

aristarchusinexile wrote:In the bottom of the two photos, has the comet split into two nucleus?

Fred Pellmann wrote:What star/comet?? is at the end of the tail in the upper picture and then has moved in the lower picture.
I used as a reference point the string of 4 background stars, starting at about 12 o'clock above this brighter and larger star than the background and going to the left and down at about a 20 deg.