Posted on 07/28/2011 8:47:39 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
A stream of dusty fragments from a comet born in the outermost reaches of the solar system has hit the Earth on a path that leads astronomers to conclude the comet itself could be "potentially hazardous" if it crashes into the planet.
The comet's location is unknown, making it difficult to say when it will approach Earth, but "the orbits of the dust trail tells us that the comet is on a path that could eventually hit us," said Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View.
"It's very unlikely," he conceded Wednesday. "Such impacts are extremely rare in Earth's history."
The trail of dust grains, known as meteoroids, were shed by the comet long ago as it passed the sun and Earth on a long orbit that could have taken thousands of years to complete, Jenniskens said.
The comet was born billions of years ago and trillions of miles away in the cold comet nursery called the Oort Cloud, and streams of the comet's dusty progeny have returned to Earth once or twice every 60 years or so when their orbits come under the influence of Saturn and Jupiter, Jenniskens said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
So the budget stuff doesn’t matter after all.
Personally, I think this comet was pushed towards earth from Klendathu in the Arachnid Quarantine Zone... stinkin' bugs!
I think here would be better
35.73844,51.388169
Exactly. Such a good movie for pure mindless fun and entertainment.
A quick, reasonably merciful death? We won’t be that lucky...
I don't know if it's a precursor of things to come, but I've always hoped that I'd get to see in my lifetime a meteor shower like the 1966 Leonids which filled the skies with hundreds of shooting stars at a time going on for hours.
REPENT.. the END is near. /s
I blame Michelle Bachmann.
Would have been Bush’s fault but time to move on.
“I’ve always hoped that I’d get to see in my lifetime a meteor shower like the 1966 Leonids which filled the skies with hundreds of shooting stars at a time going on for hours.”
The Perseids come in about two weeks, but I don’t know how much the full moon will impair your seeing them.
http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors
After receiving news of the comet, President Obama appointed a Comet Czar to study the impact of such an impact, and to propose a tax plan to better prepare our minorities and children.
My latest research indicates the comet will strike somewhere on the continental United States. All liberals must be immediately evacuated to Somalia to save the species.
You wanna see crashes?
Hang in there, wtf guy ;-!
The boys are racing at Indy Sunday
http://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com/brickyard400/
Drop the E and N and use:
38.889914, -77.009098
Nevada and Eastern Oregon are pretty much the only large swaths of the USA left (outside of central Montana, some of Nebraska, Southern Utah, and the Dakotas) where the new moon skies are black as ink, according to the 'dark' spots as shown on the Dark Sky Finder' site. I've been way way out in the great open empty parts of my state when there's no moonlight at all and it's like being locked in a closet to the point where it seems that you can't see your own hand in front of your face. There's 'dark' and then there's 'Nevada dark'.
That's the way to see the Milky Way in the summertime. I have Nikon 10-20x50mm binocs with a steadying foot rope attached for stargazing from a folding chair.
Random thought. The Russians are still using the technology of that book, the US developed and abandoned a whole new generation since then. Who was smarter?
That’s a very cool tool. I grew up in NJ, so compared to where I grew up, the skies I see in NC are very dark, but obviously WAY less dark than the skies you enjoy in NV.It does amaze me that parts of western NC, which SEEM pretty remote, still apparently have lots of light pollution. I had no idea.
Note: this topic is from 7/28/2011. Thanks NormsRevenge.
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It isn’t in sight and “[it] may have last zipped by the sun just a few hundred years ago, or many thousands...”
So I read that to mean it is hundreds or thousands years away form coming back.
“I’ve been way way out in the great open empty parts of my state when there’s no moonlight at all and it’s like being locked in a closet to the point where it seems that you can’t see your own hand in front of your face. “
A friend of mine drove through the Dakotas last week over night and described it exactly as you did.
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