NASA/ESA SOHO - Has Comet ISON Broken Up?

preview_player
Показать описание
Has Comet ISON broken up? It is still unclear.

As Comet ISON heads toward its closest approach to the Sun — known as perihelion — on Nov. 28, 2013, scientists have been watching through many observatories to see if the comet has already broken up under the intense heat and gravitational forces of the Sun.

The comet is too far away to discern how many pieces it is in, so instead researchers carefully measure how bright it is, which can be used to infer its current state. Less light can sometimes mean that more of the material has boiled off and disappeared, perhaps pointing to a disintegrated comet. But also a disintegrating comet sometimes gives off more light, at least temporarily, so researchers look at the comet's pattern of behavior over the previous few days to work out what it may be doing.

At times observations have suggested ISON was getting dimmer and might already be in pieces. However, over Nov. 26-27, 2013, the comet once again brightened. In the early hours of Nov. 27, the comet appeared in the view of the European Space Agency/NASA mission the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph instrument.

Coronagraphs block out the bright light of the Sun in order to better see the dimmer solar atmosphere, the corona. In these images, the comet looks quite bright as it moves in from the lower right of the image. A giant cloud of solar material, called a coronal mass ejection or CME, is also seen in the images bursting off the bottom of the sun and heading out into space. It is as yet unclear if the CME is heading towards ISON but even if it does, it poses no real danger to the comet.

If the comet has already broken up, it should disintegrate completely as it makes its slingshot around the Sun. This would provide a great opportunity for scientists to see the insides of the comet, and better understand its composition — as such information holds clues about what material was present during the solar system's formation when this comet was born. However, it would likely mean no comet visible in the night sky in December. We'll only know for sure after the comet rounds the Sun on Thanksgiving Day.

Credit: NASA/ESA SOHO
Рекомендации по теме
Комментарии
Автор

Very interesting! Looking forward to catching up on More tech so I can enjoy these posts more. THANKS CAM & SDO! =))

spiffy
Автор

It hasn't broken up and probably won't- this comet is far more stable than some believe.

Styxhexenhammer
Автор

If its been here before, why should it break up this time and not last time? Every other day people are posting its breaking up and yet every time we see it hasn't. Can't we just watch it and be amazed.? Rather than speculating ourself into a frenzy? :) if it starts to explode I'm sure well notice.

HigherDimensionalMind
Автор

the only thing breaking right now is the SOHO website, overloaded. 

LuisFelipeHessel
Автор

Attention!  Attention please!  Comet ISON has left the solar system.  No joke.  Soho data LASCO C2  2013/11/28, 21:36 clearly shows Comet ISON moving past the sun 's west side then shooting straight up north clearly on a path that will take it right out of the solar system and not going around the sun, ignoring it's projected path!  It's a good thing, at that speed, that it didn't directly hit the sun!  It's speed appears to be too fast for it's project circle around the sun, boomerang path!  Wow!

FollowingTheSon