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InvisibleDiploidM
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Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter
    #7581893 - 10/31/07 06:29 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)



Last week Comet Holmes was just another fuzzball you could only see with a telescope--until it suddenly brightened a million times in a few hours. Now, you can easily see it with the naked eye, it's still expanding, and it has even changed color.

Scientists are puzzled as to the cause of the amazing change in the comet, officially known as 17P/Holmes, which was originally discovered in 1892 (discovery photo later). They do expect that its current intensity will fade in a few weeks as the gases from its explosion dissipate.

Comet Holmes should be visible for the next few weeks on a clear night. It's located in the Perseus constellation. The easiest way to find it is to look northeast and spot the Cassiopeia constellation, which looks like a "W" standing on end. Stretch your arm, and Perseus, where you'll find Comet Holmes, will be one and a half fists to the lower right.

news.com


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleThirdEyeOpening
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7582355 - 10/31/07 08:47 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Damn, its been overcast every night for the past week in central FL . I have yet to see it, and i missed this event, and i may not get a chance to see it with this front coming in, and a damn TS coming. Its been like two weeks since ive seen the stars. :frown:


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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. Im not too sure about the former.      -Einstein

Of course the rules need to be enforced, but the goal of law and order should be to create a just society, not to enforce laws. -Unknown

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”  -Stephen Roberts


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OfflineToTheSummit
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7582447 - 10/31/07 09:24 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Day late and a dollar short... :tongue:

Its really not that spectacular to the naked eye yet since it has no tail.  But its pretty significant in its strange behavior.  Heres the pics I took last weekend.



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You invented the wheel....You push the motherfucker!!


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InvisibleZippoZM
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: ToTheSummit]
    #7582506 - 10/31/07 09:44 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

ive seen it almost every night from chicago, it forms in a nice little triangle with some of the stars from perseus


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"in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption"

"People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7583480 - 11/01/07 10:21 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

My guess is a collision with another comet. Such a collision would cause a huge plasma cloud, thus light.

If something brightens a million times either the aliens did some deep space demolition or there was another sudden increase in energy, like a collision.


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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Asante]
    #7583532 - 11/01/07 10:39 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Doesn't the article make it pretty clear that the thing exploded?

Quote:

They do expect that its current intensity will fade in a few weeks as the gases from its explosion dissipate.





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After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7583644 - 11/01/07 11:14 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Here's more:

--

A usually obscure comet has donned a bright new costume for Halloween, giving skywatchers a surprising treat.

Comet Holmes, visible to the naked eye in the northeast sky after dark, stunned astronomers last week with an outburst that made it brighter than any comet in the past decade.

"The comet is quite spectacular," said Jim Todd, planetarium director for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. "But it looks like a star, so you'll need binoculars or a telescope to get a good look at it."

With no visible tail, the comet resembles a yellowish fuzzball as it zips through space about 150 million miles from Earth. The comet can be seen in the constellation Perseus early in the evening, about one-third of the way from the northeast horizon to straight overhead. It climbs to directly overhead between 2 and 3 a.m.

The comet may be bright enough to see for only a few weeks or days, Todd said. "Comets are notoriously unpredictable, so no one can predict how long this show is going to last."

Astronomers can only guess as to what caused the comet to intensify in brightness from magnitude 17, visible only through a good telescope, to a gleaming magnitude 3. They speculate that the brightening might have resulted from a sunlight-reflecting outburst of gas and dust.

A similar outburst led to its discovery in 1892 by Edwin Holmes, an English amateur astronomer. Since then it has made 16 loops around the sun.

Comets are made of ice, frozen gases and bits of rock and are referred to as "dirty snowballs." They have a coma -- the fuzzy halo of gas and dust around the nucleus -- and often have a streaming tail of debris.

In 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp, with a spectacular tail, put on a months-long spectacle.

To see photos taken throughout the world and read updates on Comet Holmes, go to http://spaceweather.com

oregonlive.com


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7583646 - 11/01/07 11:14 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Why would a comet explode in the vacuum of space, without provocation?

My vote is on a collision.


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Asante]
    #7583715 - 11/01/07 11:37 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

A collision would change the orbit and impart spin to the comet, varying it's albedo. Neither hasn't been observed.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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InvisibleautomanM
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7583763 - 11/01/07 11:51 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

/me slips on red sneakers

who's coming with me?


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Invisiblezorbman
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7588790 - 11/02/07 05:50 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I have yet to see the thing and I have looked for it several times. It must be very low on the horizon because that is where the tree line is here.


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“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”  -- Rudiger Dornbusch


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: zorbman]
    #7588837 - 11/02/07 06:08 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Can you see Perseus at all?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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Invisiblezorbman
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7588896 - 11/02/07 06:28 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I'm not sure where it is- I've been looking for the comet in the general NE quadrant. I'll have to dig up a star map somewhere if its in that vicinity.


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“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”  -- Rudiger Dornbusch


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: zorbman]
    #7588985 - 11/02/07 06:44 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

I'll have to dig up a star map somewhere if its in that vicinity.

There's one in the opening post. Click to enlarge. :tongue:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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Invisiblezorbman
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7589649 - 11/02/07 10:06 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

There's one in the opening post. Click to enlarge.




Damn, why'd you hide it in there of all places?? :grin:


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“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”  -- Rudiger Dornbusch


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7590673 - 11/03/07 11:01 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

A collision would change the orbit and impart spin to the comet, varying it's albedo. Neither hasn't been observed.




It could be a tiny comet impacting the big one. You'd hardly see change then.

A walnut-sized metallic comet impacting a snowball at 10 miles a second would form quite some tail, yet be tiny compared to the energies of the big one.


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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Asante]
    #7591341 - 11/03/07 02:33 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Just an update from CNN on the story.

It looks like, as I speculated, the comet exploded. I'm not sure why something being a vaccum should keep it from exploding.

Quote:


KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A comet that has unexpectedly brightened in the past couple of weeks and now is visible to the naked eye is attracting professional and amateur interest.

Paul Lewis, director of astronomy outreach at the University of Tennessee, is drawing students to the roof of Nielsen Physics Building for special viewings of Comet 17P/Holmes.

The comet is exploding and its coma, a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun, has grown to be bigger than the planet Jupiter. The comet lacks the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies but can be seen in the northern sky, in the constellation Perseus, as a fuzzy spot of light about as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper.

"This is truly a celestial surprise," Lewis said. "Absolutely amazing."

Until Oct. 23, the comet had been visible to modern astronomers only with a telescope, but that night it suddenly erupted and expanded.

A similar burst in 1892 led to the comet's discovery by Edwin Holmes.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event to witness, along the lines of when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter back in 1994," Lewis said.

Scientists speculate the comet has exploded because there are sinkholes in its nucleus, giving it a honeycomb-like structure. The collapse exposed comet ice to the sun, which transformed the ice into gas.

"What comets do when they are near the sun is very unpredictable," Lewis said. "We expect to see a coma cloud and a tail, but this is more like an explosion, and we are seeing the bubble of gas and dust as it expands away from the center of the blast."

Experts aren't sure how long the comet's show will last, but estimate it could be weeks — if not months. Using a telescope or binoculars help bring the comet's details into view, they said.





--------------------
After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus


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InvisibleZippoZM
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Madtowntripper]
    #7591378 - 11/03/07 02:46 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

so, how fast is this thing moving??? and which direction is it moving relative to perseus


--------------------
PEACE

:mushroom2:zippoz:mushroom2:



"in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption"

"People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: Diploid]
    #7606827 - 11/07/07 12:45 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Dip, hey I accidentally came across it two nights ago. I hadn't heard anything about it as I don't do the media thing. I had my telescope out and was just cruising around and it blew me away. I knew it didn't belong there. That was so fucking cool to have just discovered it on my own. I'm still high off of that.:thumbup:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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OfflineToTheSummit
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Re: Comet Suddenly Becomes A Million Times Brighter [Re: ToTheSummit]
    #7621305 - 11/11/07 08:56 AM (16 years, 2 months ago)

So, is see how it is Diploid!  Use your moderator powers to lock my thread and push traffic towards your inferior thread which was started 5 days too late!  Well, we all know who was the first on this one here at the Shroomery. :smirk:

Anyway, I'll post the updated pic in here as well just to appease you. :razz:




--------------------
You invented the wheel....You push the motherfucker!!


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