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Space

Comet ISON Approaches Perihelion 39

Posted by Soulskill from the put-on-your-game-face dept.
New submitter BugNuker writes "Comet ISON has been speeding towards the sun, and while doing so, it has been getting brighter. There was hope that ISON would be 'Comet of the Century' material. That does not seem to be the case, but it still exists and it's still very interesting. Recently, ISON has undergone some outbursts, making it a near naked-eye object. ISON is still approaching perihelion (it will get there at 18:25 UTC on 28 November). For now, we can keep watching the STEREO spacecraft images for more evidence." Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society put together this animated GIF of the comet from images taken by the STEREO-A spacecraft. Karl Battams put together a fascinating GIF as well. The Planetary Society has a list of information feeds and scheduled events for keeping tabs on ISON.
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Comet ISON Approaches Perihelion More

Comet ISON Approaches Perihelion

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  • Perihelion (Score:3)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @06:44PM (#45532997)

    "it will get there at 18:25 UTC on 28 November)"

    Assuming it stays together that long

  • SDO near real-time images (Score:5, Informative)

    by teridon ( 139550 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @06:57PM (#45533139) Homepage

    The NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will be providing near real-time images/movies at http://cometison.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov] on Nov 28 between 12:45 pm and 1:00 pm ET (1745 - 1900 UT)

  • More Info on ISON (Score:5, Informative)

    by BugNuker ( 656348 ) * on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @07:00PM (#45533161)
    ISON is currently moving at 117 km/s! You can track ISON live here: http://theskylive.com/ison-tracker [theskylive.com]
    Many theories have been going around about the breakup. This forums is a great place for info: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/comets-ml/conversations/topics [yahoo.com]
    Also, you can checkout real-time images of ISON as they are submitted here: http://spaceweathergallery.com/ison_gallery.html [spaceweathergallery.com]

    Also, If interested, I've built a site with lots of ISON information. http://isontracker.com/ [isontracker.com] - Updates everyday

    • "ISON is currently moving at 117 km/s!

      But, ISON is going to be exposed to roughly a million times the solar flux we have near Earth for several hours. I.E. 1/100th the distance, cubed.. or 100^3 increased solar flux.. I don't expect it to survive those conditions.

      .

  • There was a UFO in the first animated GIF! It has to be Nephilum, the Mayans were right, and the apocalypse is coming!

    Now that your conspiracy is satisfied carry on and enjoy the show!

    • Oh, you think you're funny ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @07:36PM (#45533469) Homepage

      Imagine being one of the people who read the e-mail address placed on error messages on the STEREO servers.

      Then imagine that STEREO had a highly compressed near-real time data stream that was used for space weather forecasting. And that the files were replaced once the full-resolution data was downlinked and processed.

      And, by working for the government, you have a duty to respond to requests for information from the public, even when they're being completely abusive in their messages.

      I've probably spent weeks of my life responding to people trying to explain that no, NASA is not covering up evidence of UFOs, because we know what those items are-- compression artifacts, internal reflections, SEP hits, etc. [nasa.gov] (in this particular case, it's pixel bleed on the CCDs [nasa.gov]).

      And there's no reason to view some GIF that someone made when you can just view a slideshow of the images directly [nasa.gov]. It'll let you speed up / slow down the images (once you've downloaded them). After that, it should move into the field of view of COR2A [nasa.gov]

      • Re:Oh, you think you're funny ... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @09:07PM (#45534127)
        I did comment as a joke, but I can imagine how bad that would be. I have tried to explain the same basic concepts to people and their eyes tend to glaze over as soon as you say a two syllable word. It's not just compression artifacts to deal with either. I have met people truly convinced that the international space station is a UFO in the sky. *sigh*

        • Year before last I had an hour long conversation with my grandmother, as she had called me up to ask me about the whole '2012' thing, and I would know if the sun was going to blow up or not.

          It took a while, but I managed to get her to accept that the weathermen can't even tell us if it's going to rain next week, and we think there was some group hundreds of years ago that knew down to the day when something was going to happen? It'd be like claiming to know years in advance of when an earthquake, volcano e

      • I've probably spent weeks of my life responding to people trying to explain that no, NASA is not covering up evidence of UFOs, because we know what those items are-- compression artifacts, internal reflections, SEP hits, etc. [nasa.gov] (in this particular case, it's pixel bleed on the CCDs [nasa.gov]).

        Of course that's what you're going to say, because you're covering up evidence of UFOs! You think someone who works for NASA is just gonna come out and say, "Yeah, we've been visited by aliens. Where do you

        • Your dog, that wasn't ET. That was me. Don't worry, no hybrids were made. But Smokey did make a damn fine stew. Ah, that was one of the more memorable meals in my life, it was so good.

          I wish I hadn't lost the recipe, it's been bugging me for years now. I've tried to recreate that stew, but I just haven't managed. Anyway, thanks for the yummy dog.

          • But Smokey did make a damn fine stew.

            You monster.

            • Eh. All I did was abduct one little dog, slaughter it (throat cut, hung to bleed out, etc.) and turn it into one of the best meals of the century. It wasn't like I took your kid or anything. It's no worse than eating pig or beef. Honestly.

      • NASA also put together a video of the same slideshow:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZi4Ecu_cfY [youtube.com]

        It's pretty amazing to watch a view of our solar system in motion like that, with us in the picture even. I believe the smaller comet in the video is Encke.

    • I just want to know more about how Ronald Reagan got his supply of Carnivora smuggled into the White House over 20 years ago.

  • lets try without poison this time!

  • Boy or girl?

  • I'll believe it when I see it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @10:23PM (#45534593)

    Hale-Bopp from the top of a Welsh mountain with no light pollution for tens of miles around on the wekend it was at its' maximum was one the most awesome natural specatcles I've ever seen : it streched across the whole half of the sky it occupied and the movement around the head and out into the tail was clearly visible over time. As we've seen nothing yet with the naked eye and it might yet still burn up I'll opt for healthy skepticism right now. However if it does come up with the goods, try and make an effort to get yourself out of areas with light pollution if you can and see something you'll never forget.

    • Hale-Bopp was a spectacular sight on the evening commute from Washington DC, headed west. That's quite spectacular considering the light pollution there. Hyakutake was also visible in the morning in the same area. Growing up I had read about spectacular comets. I thought I'd never see one; then we got two in just a few years. For some reason I have fonder memories of Hyakutake. It reminded me of the comet on the Netscape logo. Netscape peaked about the same time those comets did. Also, there was no

    • What's to be sceptical about? This is our first shot at observing a completely new sungrazer. Whether it becomes some spectacular fireworks show comes way, way down the awesomeness scale in comparison.

  • Sungrazer Twitter feed -- a useful source (Score:4, Informative)

    by jeffb (2.718) ( 1189693 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @11:12PM (#45534873)

    I've never been much of a Twitter fan, but this feed has been excellent for links to timely information and discussion:

    SungrazerComets on Twitter [twitter.com]

  • When these astronomical events took place that the space geeks would just simply tell us "look there at this time". I get txt updates when the ISS is going to be visible where I live. They are so simple: time, date, travel direction, elevation. Is that so hard for the rest of the space geeks to do?

    • The info's out there, just not in these articles. For the northern hemisphere it'll be above the horizon in the east before dawn and (as December progresses) in the west after sunset. You won't get text alerts for a comet (time-insensitive, unpredictable) but Heavens Above [heavens-above.com], my preferred satellite-flare web site, will give you simple "where-to-look" instructions for ISON [heavens-above.com]. You're better served by getting one of the many excellent astronomy smartphone apps; I use Star Walk but Distant Suns is also very popular

  • What is that second object in the two animated gifs? I assume ISON is the one going fastest left to right, but there is also one that has a downward trajectory (seen about when the vertical line appears in the first GIF).

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