Do Comets go Poof?

lwbecker2 writes "IEEE Computing in Science and Engineering Magazine has a free story online about scientists try to solve the mystery of where all the missing comets are going. Do they go Poof? Interesting information on the modelling and simulation of the Universe including the use of Mathematica and Beowulf clusters."

Comments

Out of Sight, Out of Mind.

[Vodak]

I know it is simplistic to think this way but, I'm glad we do not see that many comets on a regular basis. The less we see the less hit the earth, yes I know one day the Earth's luck will run out and my buried remains will be thrown all over space but to live in the ignorance of the moment makes me happy.

The Sun

[JM Apocalypse]

Well -- you see ... the comments only can be seen when they are near the sun, and when they have a tail. They don't go poof. They just hide for a few hundred years. You know, the ice exposed to heat effect.

obvious?

[ptaff]

If comets have a tail, I guess they're losing mass. If I lose mass on a regular basis, I won't go *poof*: I'll just gradually disappear. Or I'll gently break up in pieces that will make the mass-loss even more evident.

maybe there weren't as many comets...

[ggwood]

I have lots of respect for the type of work Levison is doing. However, in order to start it you have to have pretty firm beliefs about the origin of the solar system (an event we did not see directly - nor have we seen other solar systems form; the process is slow so we won't.)

What his work is really showing is that either: (a) one (or more) of his assumptions in his simulation is wrong or (b) there were not so many comets in the early solar system. I think this is why Levison says he is trying to prove his prior work wrong (e.g. he is looking for potential errors in his assumptions.)

Here is a poster on early solar system abundance of small comets. In this example, they count craters on Europa, a moon of Jupiter, to get an indication of how many there were in the early solar system.

An example of an simple statement which, although unlikely to be true, has to worry Levison in the back of his head somewhere, would be along the lines of: at some time in the past, our solar system passed through a debris field which created many of these craters, thus the large number of craters, but it only happened once (or very, very rarely) and this is throwing off our counting.

Such projects can putter along for years but have the potential to return fabulous results. Its the kind of project graduate students are interested in, but worried they cannot get a solid thesis project out of. It is also tough to fund such projects in America these days. Thus I have respect for these people, and wish them good luck.