by Chris Peterson » Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:11 pm
orin stepanek wrote:"In fact, astronomers estimate Lulin was releasing about 800 gallons of water each second, enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in less than 15 minutes."
That's a lot of water! I would think that the nucleus of the comet would have to be quite large to evaporate that much ice. I wonder does all that water get lost in space or remain in Lulin's atmosphere where it is precipitated back to the comet when it condenses?
I haven't seen an estimate of the size of the nucleus (that's pretty hard to figure out, especially for an active comet), but 1km or more would by pretty typical. And that's a lot of Olympic sized pools!
A comet has nowhere near enough mass to attract anything that is ejected from its surface. All the gas will simply dissipate, and all the dust will end up generally along the orbital path, and will also dissipate over years. If the comet was periodic that dust might produce a meteor stream, but this comet is just making one pass through the inner system, and will never return.
[quote="orin stepanek"]"In fact, astronomers estimate Lulin was releasing about 800 gallons of water each second, enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in less than 15 minutes."
That's a lot of water! I would think that the nucleus of the comet would have to be quite large to evaporate that much ice. I wonder does all that water get lost in space or remain in Lulin's atmosphere where it is precipitated back to the comet when it condenses?[/quote]
I haven't seen an estimate of the size of the nucleus (that's pretty hard to figure out, especially for an active comet), but 1km or more would by pretty typical. And that's a lot of Olympic sized pools!
A comet has nowhere near enough mass to attract anything that is ejected from its surface. All the gas will simply dissipate, and all the dust will end up generally along the orbital path, and will also dissipate over years. If the comet was periodic that dust might produce a meteor stream, but this comet is just making one pass through the inner system, and will never return.