Posted on 04/29/2013 6:01:11 PM PDT by BenLurkin
What are some of the conspiracy theories out there about Comet ISON?
One currently circulating claim states that Comet ISON has companions that have been imaged trailing it. While comets do indeed fragment on occasion, the culprits that can be seen in the .gif animation circulating the internet are easily identified by photography experts as hot pixels in the camera.
Another even more extravagant claim is that Comet ISON will somehow appear as bright as the Sun. Even if Comet ISON reaches an expected magnitude equal to that of the full Moon at -13, it will do so when it is less than a degree from the Sun. Our Sun shines at magnitude -26.74, or over 158,000 times brighter, so it would be very difficult for this comet to compete with the Suns brightness in the daytime!
Others seem to worry that this comet or particles from ISON could impact Earth. Comet ISON will be making its inner solar system passage safely 0.426 A.U., or a little over 63 million kilometers from Earth even on its closest approach on December 26th. Scientists have defined this comets orbit very precisely, and it wont hit Earth. So, no Comet ISON is not Nibiru that tenth planet destined to destroy Earth that conspiracy lovers cant seem to let go of.
The debris which might create a very nice meteor shower is made up of extremely tiny grains of dust, no more than a few microns wide. Since they will be hitting Earths atmosphere at speeds up to 200,000 km/hr (125,000 miles per hour), the particles will burn up.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
ISON loons have taken the place of the Elenin nutjobs?
There were ISON conspiracy theories and I missed them?
you dont go to abovetopsecret.com enough then!
Crap, I missed this!
I don’t enjoy the tin foil stuff as much as I used to.
much of it doesn’t seem to be as well written as in past times.
If a comet and/or meteor is coming at us from a direction behind the sun, then we won’t see it coming anyway. Even the most powerful telescopes won’t see it coming until it’s too late. So it’ll pop us without warning. Because nobody’s going to look up and think, “what’s that black spot on the sun?”
Nobody?
Hmmm..
I shot this black spot in front of the sun on 6/5/2013...Not a comet, but yes, people are watching.
Make that 6/5/2012...
Cool. I see that you have a time machine.
He used a solar slingshot to get that photo....
Please, direct your attention to door #9
Oh yea?
Well I can see Uranus!
BTW, you might be surprised, but every time ya look at the sun, (Please use a filter when doing so), you're looking as it was in the past.
So technically, you're correct.
There are rings around Uranus. Did you know that?
No, but thanks for sharing!
Got it. I see door #9 now. BTW - you are correct about the sun. It takes light about 6 minutes to get here from the sun, which means we are always looking at the sun as it was 6 minutes ago.
Anything that is going to hit us is going to take years and years to get here, and since we will be rotating around the sun all that time, nothing can really approach us from “behind the sun”. It would only be approaching us from that direction a tiny fraction of the time we would be able to try and detect it.
In fact earth was just had an encounter by an undetected meteor which exploded over Russia, which was about the size of a school bus. The shock wave caused hundreds of injuries.
Sure, but us not detecting them is due to the inherent difficulty of detecting any small object in space. It has nothing to do with something sneaking up on us from “behind the sun”.
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