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APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:09 am
by APOD Robot
Introducing Comet Garradd
Explanation: Another large snowball is falling toward the Sun.
Comet Garradd was discovered two years ago by
Gordon Garradd in
Australia, and is currently visible through a small telescope at
visual magnitude nine. Officially designated C/2009 P1 (Garradd), the comet will likely continue to brighten, with recent projections placing it at peak magnitude
six or
seven in February 2012, just below naked eye visibility.
Comet Garradd is already showing a short
tail and is seen as the elongated fuzzy patch in the above negative image recorded earlier this month from
Yellow Springs,
Ohio, USA.
Other comets are also currently falling into the
inner Solar System and brightening as well, including
C/2010 X1 (Elenin), expected to peak near magnitude six in early September,
45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova expected to peak brighten past magnitude eight in mid-August, and
C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) which may become visible to the unaided
eye during the early months of 2013.
[/b]
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:18 am
by Beyond
Well hello there, black fuzzy spot in a black polka dot background. I hope you become a little colorful in the near future.
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:15 am
by garry
Why do astronomers keep on insisting that comets are snowballs? Every space probe that has visited a comet has not found any snow, let alone quantities of water. Samples taken of comets tails show a different story. When has a ball composed supposedly of ice emit xrays? Yet comets do. State the facts not artistic licence!
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 11:36 am
by neufer
garry wrote:
Why do astronomers keep on insisting that comets are snowballs? Every space probe that has visited a comet has not found any snow, let alone quantities of water. Samples taken of comets tails show a different story. When has a ball composed supposedly of ice emit xrays? Yet comets do. State the facts not artistic licence!
You would demote these beautiful objects to "Icy dirtballs"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_nucleus wrote:
<<Comets are often described as "dirty snowballs", though recent observations have revealed dry dusty or rocky surfaces, suggesting that the ices are hidden beneath the crust. It has been suggested that comets should be referred to as "Icy dirtballs". Cometary nuclei are among the darkest objects known to exist in the solar system. The Giotto probe found that Comet Halley's nucleus reflects approximately 4% of the light that falls on it, and Deep Space 1 discovered that Comet Borrelly's surface reflects only 2.5% to 3% of the light that falls on it; by comparison, asphalt reflects 7% of the light that falls on it. It is thought that complex organic compounds are the dark surface material. Solar heating drives off volatile compounds leaving behind heavy long-chain organics that tend to be very dark, like tar or crude oil. The very darkness of cometary surfaces allows them to absorb the heat necessary to drive their outgassing.
Roughly six percent of the near-earth asteroids are thought to be extinct nuclei of comets which no longer experience outgassing. Two near-earth asteroids with albedos this low include 14827 Hypnos and
3552 Don Quixote.>>
Beyond wrote:
Well hello there, black fuzzy spot in a black polka dot background.
I hope you become a little colorful in the near future.
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:32 pm
by orin stepanek
The last comet I saw with my naked eye was Hale Bopp!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
I hope a bright comet comes around some time within a few years.
![Cool 8-)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
Sounds like 2013's arrival of
C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)
Perihelion: 2013 April 17
Maximum magnitude between 0 and 3 (still uncertain)
is the best bet!
![Cool 8-)](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif)
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:51 pm
by StarCuriousAero
Armageddon might be one horribly innaccurate movie, but I do think it would be really interesting to do a manned mission to an asteroid or comet... I realize this would be exceedingly difficult and expensive, but IMO I would appreciate that more than a manned mission to Mars, and it might even be easier if the right one came along... one with the right orbit, big enough to spot early enough to plan and design a spacecraft to get there (although it'd be unlikely, maybe better to plan for a periodic Halley-type comet)... then come back to Earth in time before it gets too hot or too far away... hmmm. Maybe sometime in the future... from what I gather we aren't really ready for another manned mission to space... beyond the ISS I suppose. I would really love to see the analysis of this low albedo "organic" material and find out where it came from, but that'd be much easier to obtain with another probe for now.
Any new and bright ideas on how to handle that pesky "Armageddon" situation anyways?
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:24 pm
by neufer
StarCuriousAero wrote:
Armageddon might be one horribly innaccurate movie, but I do think it would be really interesting to do a manned mission to an asteroid or comet... I realize this would be exceedingly difficult and expensive, but IMO I would appreciate that more than a manned mission to Mars, and it might even be easier if the right one came along... one with the right orbit, big enough to spot early enough to plan and design a spacecraft to get there (although it'd be unlikely, maybe better to plan for a periodic Halley-type comet)... then come back to Earth in time before it gets too hot or too far away... hmmm. Maybe sometime in the future... from what I gather we aren't really ready for another manned mission to space... beyond the ISS I suppose. I would really love to see the analysis of this low albedo "organic" material and find out where it came from, but that'd be much easier to obtain with another probe for now.
Any new and bright ideas on how to handle that pesky "Armageddon" situation anyways?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_%28film%29 wrote:
<<Deep Impact is a 1998 science-fiction disaster-drama film released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks. Another "space impact" film, Armageddon, was released about two months after Deep Impact in the United States. Deep Impact's greater scientific credibility was recognized, though Armageddon fared better at the box office.
Both films were equally received by critics, with Armageddon scoring 41% and Deep Impact scoring 46% on the Tomatometer.
President of the United States Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) advances the announcement of the grim facts: The comet—named Wolf-Biederman—is 7 miles (11 km) wide, large enough to destroy all life if it strikes Earth (although how the U.S. government learned of the comet's existence is not specified). The United States and Russia have been secretly constructing in orbit the spacecraft Messiah, which they plan to send on a mission to destroy the comet with nuclear weapons. After landing on the comet, the Messiah crew members plant nuclear bombs 100 meters beneath the surface; one crew member dies while another is seriously injured. When the bombs are detonated, Messiah is damaged and loses contact with Earth. Instead of being destroyed, the comet splits into two smaller rocks nicknamed "Biederman" (1.5 miles wide) and "Wolf" (6 miles wide), either one still world-threatening. Beck acknowledges Messiah’s failure, declares martial law, and announces that governments worldwide are building underground shelters. The United States' national refuge is in the limestone caves of Missouri. The US government conducts a lottery to select 800,000 ordinary Americans aged 50 and under to join 200,000 pre-selected scientists, engineers, teachers, artists, [Asterisk bloggers,] soldiers, and officials.>>
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:35 pm
by superbcpoet
'Another snowball'???? Every comet probe has shown a much different comet nature. Comets that have been lately investigated all appear to be rocky bodies, lacking snow fields or icy plains. Repeating disproven theories does little to advance either science or the popular understanding of it.
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:35 pm
by tECH hIPPY
An interesting sidenote to this Earth threatening asteroid discussion is that not only is the author of the photo (John Chumack) from Yellow Springs, OH but so too is an author on the very real possibility of this type of disaster - Martin A. Schwab, Homeplanet Defense: Strategic Thought for a World in Crisis (Infinity Publishing, 2005)
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 5:08 pm
by neufer
tECH hIPPY wrote:
An interesting sidenote to this Earth threatening asteroid discussion is that not only is the author of the photo (John Chumack) from Yellow Springs, OH but so too is an author on the very real possibility of this type of disaster - Martin A. Schwab, Homeplanet Defense: Strategic Thought for a World in Crisis (Infinity Publishing, 2005)
Send astronauts up to cover the asteroid with butter and hope that it slips past the Earth.
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2011/07/27/Jockstrip-The-world-as-we-know-it/UPI-72001311760800/ wrote:
COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 27 (UPI) -- A butter sculpture of an astronaut was set up at the Ohio State Fair Tuesday in honor of the just-ended space shuttle program. Nineteen Ohio natives or residents have flown on the shuttle, the best-known of them former Sen. John Glenn, who earlier was the first American to orbit Earth in 1961. The astronaut sits at a shuttle control panel, eating freeze-dried ice cream. Next to him in the Dairy Building at the state fairgrounds in Columbus stand the fair's traditional Holstein cow and its calf, also made of butter, The Columbus Dispatch reported. They don't melt because they're kept in a 45-degree glass case. Three sculptors from Cincinnati artists -- Bob Kling, Alex Balz and Paul Brooke -- made the figures.
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 5:11 pm
by Ann
Let's hope this new comet grows a nice blue tail.
Blue tail Comet Hyakutake.
Photo by Kevin Hartnett.
Ann
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 8:19 pm
by biddie67
Those beautiful blue-tailed lizards abound here in NW Florida. However, those bewitching, twitching tails are very toxic, if not fatal, to mesmerized kitty-kats. Let's hope that those beautiful blue-tailed comets don't bring the same result to humans that are too casually fascinated ....
In other words, it seems that we need to be quite careful when approaching these comets from who-knows-where with who-knows-what embedded in them.
Re: APOD: Introducing Comet Garradd (2011 Jul 27)
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:43 am
by saturn2
Ann presents image of Blue tail Comet Hyakutake.
This is very handsome image.