Posted on 05/12/2006 3:55:28 PM PDT by blam
Comet break-up puts on sky show
The comet is breaking into fragments. (Image: European Southern Observatory)
A comet is delighting astronomers with a marvellous night-time display as it makes a near pass of the Earth. The ball of ice, rock and dust has broken up into more than 60 pieces; two of the larger fragments are visible through binoculars or small telescopes.
At its closest approach this weekend, the comet will be some 10 million km (six million miles) from the Earth.
Continued disintegration means this may be the last swing around the Sun for Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3.
Good chance
Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, said the optimum time to see the comet in the UK was between 0000 and 0100 BST, away from the lights of the city.
He said observers should look East with binoculars and use a sky chart to get the best chance of a sighting.
Click here to see the comet's path across the sky "It's a rare opportunity for members of the public to see what is a pretty dramatic phenomenon," he said.
"Watching a comet break up is not something the public gets to do that often."
Rapid demise
Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 was discovered in 1930 by German astronomers. It orbits the Sun every 5.4 years.
It has an elongated path that swings out towards Jupiter then back towards the Earth and the Sun.
All periodic comets like this one are doomed to disintegrate and die. Astronomers first noticed in 1995 that Comet 73P had split into several chunks.
When it moved back towards the Sun in March this year, seven fragments were observed, of which two - B and C - were particularly bright. The break-up has continued apace.
Fragments B and C are expected to be visible between 11 and 14 May with binoculars and perhaps even the unaided eye.
If they fall apart still further - ejecting light-reflective material from the heart of the comet - they will be a magnificent sight in the night sky.
COMET 73P/SCHWASSMANN-WACHMANN 3 IN THE MAY SKY
* To get the best view of the sky always move away from the city
* The fragments are now moving across the Cygnus constellation
* Look East and high with binoculars; fragment B has been brightest
Come on, man, tell me where to look!
According to the article, the comet will only be visible from Britain. Assuming you're a Brit.
Half way between Vega and Draco ... sounds like Contact meets James Bond. The 0000 BST best time means what, 8 PM EDT (GMT-4) on the east coast? Still too bright, I think.
Fyi...
This website has some good info....although I'm not sure about reading their charts about when to look in the US....
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/73P.html
I wondered about that as I re-read the article. Bummer.
The word public is an example of an adjective gone bad or nominative. Might as well talk about the private.
Since the Earth rotates on its axis once every 24 hours, if it's visible in Britain it should be visible in most of the northern hemisphere.
ping
It won't be visible in Fairbanks except for those with a programmable telescope of fair size inside a dome.
Anybody hear of any increase in meteor activity? What we are seeing here is the birth of an annual meteor shower.
That's what I'm hoping for - may not see the comet, but the offshoots might make a good show.
From today's New Scientist Magazine.
I thought of that, too. Comet's travels tend to be a long event, so I don't see why not.
Why do you say that? Fairbanks is not much farther north than the UK, well about 13 1/2 degrees or about 800 miles. Unless it's too FReeking cold to go outside.
It should be visible in or outside of Fairbanks to the East about 40 degrees above the horizon at 10 AM Universal time, which if I'm not mistaken is about 1 AM AKDT. The sun should have been down for about 3 hours and won't be up for about 3 more. Look for Cygnus the Swam (aka "The Northern Cross"). The comet is visible with ordinary binoculars.
You should actually have a better view than those farther south, because it's higher in the sky. Best I can do is 20 degrees or so, to the NE at 2 AM, and that's a bad direction for light pollution. Although it is the direction I saw a really cool exploding meteor last fall or early winter. Of course that was so bright, I saw it reflected from the houses in the opposite direction, which was the direction I was looking at the time. Scared shit out of me. Just for an instant, I thought maybe we'd been nuked somewhere off to the northeast. (could have been Dallas or Ft. Worth).
Not from this one until 2022. We don't cross it's orbit until then, at least at the same the debris would be there. It's orbit is about 5+ years, our is of course one year, but when we cross it's orbit, it's usually somewhere else in that orbit. Eventually the debris will spread out along the orbit and we'll get some kind of shower every time we cross it, but eventually won't be in my lifetime. I'll be somewhat lucky to the see the first shower 16 years from now.
Guess that's assuming we have a good idea of how fast the debris field spreads out.
It's interesting that perihelion for this comet is almost exactly the Earths orbit, and that it crosses the elliptic plane at almost exactly the same time.
I was wondering if it's really a remnant of our planet when we got smashed big time by something way in the past...
You'll want to look a little east of northeast, probably after 1 AM. Cygnus will be fully up but low to the horizon by midnight or so. I may grab my spotting scope and try to have a look myself.
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