NEAT Comet Crossing: Internet Telescopes

An anonymous reader writes "During a large solar coronal mass ejection, this week's NEAT Comet crossing, gave some spectacular film footage. While no comet with such a small nucleus has ever survived that kind of close solar approach (one-fourth of Mercury's orbit) without fragmenting, this one did-- and is now outward bound on its 370 century roundtrip. These new comet discoveries have filled the log files of the now 70 big robotic telescope projects, most of which are being connected to the internet. The largest ($3 M) research-class one for public use--the Hawaiian Faulkes Project--will see first light in 45 days."

Comments

just a tad overstated....

[Malor]

While no comet with such a small nucleus has ever survived that kind of close solar approach (one-fourth of Mercury's orbit) without fragmenting, this one did[....]

Wow. You mean we got lucky enough to see something that hasn't happened even once in the several billion years the Solar System has been around?

I suppose he could have said "we haven't seen anything like this happen before", but that would be so boring in comparison.