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Comet-Kaze Strikes The Sun
Discovery News ^ | Saturday, March 13, 2010 | Ray Villard

Posted on 03/14/2010 7:18:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

At first glance it looks like aliens are using the sun for target practice. A string of bullet-shaped streaks of light appear to be shooting straight toward the sun. These are the proverbial snowballs in Hell, plunging 300 miles per second toward a fiery end in the sun's atmosphere... The wayward comets are called sungrazers. They are a class of comet that likes to live dangerously. Sungrazers can skirt within a few thousand miles of the sun's roiling photosphere. Many are torn apart or evaporate as they streak along at a blazing 1 million miles per hour. As their orbits are perturbed, surviving sungrazers can collide with the sun on a subsequent passage. The first recognized sungrazing comet was detected during a total solar eclipse in May 1882... The most recent, comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965. Once solar observing satellites were lofted into orbit the sungrazers were easily detected. SOHO, with its coronographs, has cataloged over 1,000 sungrazers in spectacular passages... Because the sungrazers are so short-lived and many seem to follow similar orbits, they must have come from parent bodies that broke apart. In fact the majority belong to a hypothesized "mother comet" that disintegrated perhaps as long as 2000 years ago. The fragments whip around the sun as gravitational perturbations nudge the low point (perihelion) of their elliptical orbits closer to the sun.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; comet; soho
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1 posted on 03/14/2010 7:18:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: KevinDavis; 75thOVI; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; ...
Ka-boom!
Because the sungrazers are so short-lived and many seem to follow similar orbits... the majority belong to a hypothesized "mother comet" that disintegrated perhaps as long as 2000 years ago.
 
Catastrophism
 
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2 posted on 03/14/2010 7:20:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (http://themagicnegro.com/)
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To: SunkenCiv

The Kreutz Sungrazers are a family of sungrazing comets, characterized by orbits taking them extremely close to the Sun at perihelion.About 83% of the sungrazers observed with SOHO are members of the Kreutz group.


3 posted on 03/14/2010 7:26:02 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution."-Dr.Wernher Von Braun)
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To: SunkenCiv

I think being launched into to Sun would be an awesome way to go!


4 posted on 03/14/2010 7:26:44 PM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: SunkenCiv

The result will hit us on the solstice in... 2012!!!!

(just saw 2012 today for the first time — funniest movie I have seen in quite some time).


5 posted on 03/14/2010 7:32:53 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ( Tagline lost -- anyone seen it?)
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To: KoRn

>>I think being launched into to Sun would be an awesome way to go!<<

Have it done at night so you won’t get burnt.


6 posted on 03/14/2010 7:33:25 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ( Tagline lost -- anyone seen it?)
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To: SunkenCiv

7 posted on 03/14/2010 7:37:13 PM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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To: freedumb2003
"Have it done at night so you won’t get burnt."

That's a great idea! After dark, the damn thing is probably cold until it lights back up in the morning. I might make it to the surface!

8 posted on 03/14/2010 7:40:31 PM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: KoRn

??After dark, the damn thing is probably cold until it lights back up in the morning. I might make it to the surface!<<

THAT’S the spirit! — 12 hours there and back!


9 posted on 03/14/2010 7:41:38 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ( Tagline lost -- anyone seen it?)
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To: freedumb2003; Quix; UriÂ’el-2012
The result will hit us on the solstice in... 2012!!!!

Interesting ping
10 posted on 03/14/2010 7:42:41 PM PDT by Cronos (Philipp2:12, 2Cor5:10, Rom2:6, Matt7:21, Matt22:14, Lu12:42-46,John15:1-10,Rev2:4-5,Rev22:19)
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To: sonofstrangelove

Thanks sonofstrangelove.


11 posted on 03/14/2010 8:01:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (http://themagicnegro.com/)
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To: KoRn; freedumb2003

The limit to that approach is defined by the immutable speed of dark.


12 posted on 03/14/2010 8:02:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (http://themagicnegro.com/)
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To: Cronos; freedumb2003; Quix
f2003>The result will hit us on the solstice in... 2012!!!!

Interesting ping

Summer or winter ?

13 posted on 03/14/2010 8:18:36 PM PDT by Uri’el-2012 (Psalm 119:174 I long for Your salvation, YHvH, Your law is my delight.)
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To: UriÂ’el-2012

>>Summer or winter ?<<

Based on the movie, I will say winter — that seems to be the one the ancients get their robes in a bunch about...


14 posted on 03/14/2010 8:32:01 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ( Tagline lost -- anyone seen it?)
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To: UriÂ’el-2012

HMMMMMM

. . . a la the ice queen of Narnia?

LOL.


15 posted on 03/14/2010 8:33:04 PM PDT by Quix (BLOKES who got us where we R: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: SunkenCiv

>>The limit to that approach is defined by the immutable speed of dark.<<

Which is measured in the photosruind scale (you can only measure escape velocity).


16 posted on 03/14/2010 8:33:24 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ( Tagline lost -- anyone seen it?)
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To: SunkenCiv

Kaze = Wind


17 posted on 03/14/2010 8:37:51 PM PDT by Sender (It's never too late to be who you could have been.)
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To: freedumb2003
Dude go during winter, and leave from Alaska and you could get 22 maybe 23 hours there and back. Won't need as much fuel and won't cause as much man made global warming.

Oh and bring me some Jimmy Dean sausage back please.

18 posted on 03/14/2010 8:41:05 PM PDT by jimpick
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To: jimpick

Ali G asked Buzz Aldrin about going to the Sun in the winter.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xLN5-1QGRM


19 posted on 03/14/2010 9:04:40 PM PDT by coon2000 (Give me Liberty or give me death!)
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To: coon2000

That was FABULOUS — Buzz was great in Frasier and clearly has the deadpan delivery and response than anyone would want.

What a trooper!


20 posted on 03/14/2010 9:23:19 PM PDT by freedumb2003 ( Tagline lost -- anyone seen it?)
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