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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."
Well (as pointed out by the randomness article a few days back) it's possible that there's nothing inherently stronger about this comet than the others; it could just be the freak point on the bell curve.
But what do I know from comets?
From one of the articles:
"Faulkes is currently trying to persuade time-pressed teachers - who are more reluctant than he envisaged - to get involved with the project."
Reluctant teachers are the types who would keep school dull and disconnected from the real world. It is amazing how, even in adulthood, I find myself going back and actually learning things I was supposed to have learned in school. It always comes in the context of a project I may get involved with. Way back in school, when that bit of knowledge was disconnected from any real world application, I found it hard to keep my focus. When that bit of knowledge relates to my life, I find it extremely fascinating.
In the face of such an interesting activity, "reluctant teachers" should be summarily fired.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
the interesting thing about this comet was that they figured if it survived the solar radiation blasting it took from looping so close to the sun was that it would probably come out the close encounter of the sun shining brighter! What amateurs and scientists alike thought would happen was the solar radiation would blast off the outer shell and literally ignite some of the denser inner chemicals. Sort of neat, no pun intended...
this is not a sig.
He misquotes "nothing new under the Sun" as "nothing changes under the Sun". Any terrabiologist worth his salt would quibble with his description of "[the Sun] that makes possible all life on Earth", thinking of undersea volcanic vent ecosystems, and those tiny critters apparently riddling the entire crust. And even basic arithmetic eludes him in
because 93/10 < 13, not > 13. Not to mention that the $10 disposable camera I shoot off at keg parties is covering an enormous field of vision, measureless even in parsecs, accounting for up to 30% of the entire Universe. And the entire distance from the Sun to the Earth can be contained in a 0' arc, when I face the Sun.
At least he didn't speculate on how the comet held together, or I'd be complaining about how the polyacrylates in Krazy Glue have never been detected anywhere but on Earth.
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
In astronomy, there is something called the "Roche limit". It is the closest a object can come to another object without being torn apart (by difference in gravitational force between the part closest to the star/planet/whatever, and the part furthest away from it.) The larger the satellite, the larger the difference in force and therefore the larger this limit.
So the answer why such a small nucleus did not get torn apart is easy: because it is so small.
There are a bunch of us at The Astronomy Center in the North of England, who are building a 42 inch (1.06 metre) robotic/Internet telescope. We have finished building the 30 foot (10 metre) dome that the telescope will live in, and are half way through building the grinding machine for figuring the mirror. Lots more information on the web site above. More volunteers are always welcome.