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Two Comets Slam into Sun
NightWulf notes: "CNN has an article about two comets that slammed into the Sun this week, causing it to 'burp.' They have some cool images of collision as well as a quicktime video. Could this have been the cause of the large solar flares that have been occurring this week?" Update: 11/10 03:07 GMT by H : Hah. Cliff's feeling retro I guess, and posted this story from 1998.
No.
that'd be kinda hard since it happened SIX YEARS AGO in June.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
"June 4, 1998 Web posted at: 3:50 p.m. EDT (1950 GMT)"
Not exactly breaking news here. I'm pretty sure that since this article is 5 years old, the comets didn't cause the solar flares.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
In other news the movement of a butterfly's wings in the last century has been shown to have caused last month's hurricane.
That CNN looks awful. Wait, a second, phone call. It's 1998 calling, they said they want their ugly web site back.
Are you sure it was this week? Positive? Could it have maybe been a couple of weeks ago? Oh, wait, make that 7 friggin' years ago! *sigh* Hey, Slashdot, it's been a rough week for ya, hasn't it?
Obviously you haven't read the FAQ. It's not the job of the editors to actually do editing. You don't believe me? Read for yourself:
How do you verify the accuracy of Slashdot stories?
We don't. You do. :) If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration, but as a rule, we regard this as the responsibility of the submitter and the audience. This is why it's important to read comments. You might find something that refutes, or supports, the story in the main.
Back when I was writing papers about impact catastrophes we used to show this movie to people. But when we did the mathematics we protty much could rule out any chance that the flares seen in the vide are related. The energy released in a solar flare is so many orders of magnitude greater that you have to start invoking exotic physics to have a chance of relating them...
OK this was 5 years ago, maybe the laws of physics have changed.
Here's a thread discussing the ep on bad astronomy.com
What the fuck? This article is from 1998. Is that a typo? Is this the Slashdot wayback machine?
Science called.... I...I don't know what it was trying to say... but I think it was crying.
-You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.
Anyone know if /. posted this one 5 year ago?
I hope it wasn't in the story queue for 5 years.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
that's utterly lame. i hope these guys don't actually get paid to pick their asses and do nothing all day. or maybe this level of incompetence requires effort.
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And here I was getting ready to say it wasn't comets at all but two malfunctioning Halliburton motherships then I get to find out this shit is 5 years old.
/me folds up tinfoil hat
/me frowns
/me kicks rock
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
NightWulf and Cliff, you may think I'm crazy, but sell your dot-com stock now !!!
NO CARRIER
After all - F=1/2mv^2
So assuming a finger velocity of 10ms^-1 and a combined finger/button mass of 0.05Kg we still only acheive an energy output of approx. 2.5J.
Obviously this is far short of the 1.928 x 10 E10 joules produced by 1 Kg of Uranium 235. Hence we can rule out any relationship between buttons and terrestrial fission devices...
Ok, so that is a touch inflammatory - but if I see one more "mathematically proven" piece of opinion I am going to "go critical".
After 10 seconds of thought here is my analysis:
Comets have two tails, not one. One is the "dust tail", the other the "ion tail". The ion tail (generally CO2 ionised by UV radiation) is swept away from the surface of the sun by its "solar magnetic wind" and hence will be roughly perpendicular to the suns surface (and hence it's field force lines).
An ionic tail (possibly up to an astronomical unit in length) descending into the suns EM fields is going to be like sticking a fork in a powerpoint...
To quote Nasa: "Flares appear to be associated with rapid energy releases high above the photosphere"
Hypothesis complete. Completely unproven of course, but I will not rule it "in" or "out"...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
and the bartender says.. yep, 7 year old stories, bartenter jokes, sunday night, no beer, butterflys compeating with elephants. need an engine for my truck, at least they had fish at buffet for dinner, think I will try the radio, lets...(/.)...try...a...little...harder... for...a...real...time...story. Besides would'nt a comet have to be like the size of Jupiter to even reach the sun? And 100xJupiter to make a splash that would do something? I thnk these went pfft a few million miles out.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
Everyone know that light from CNN takes over 5 1/2 years to reach slashdot. So while you are only seeing the story appear now, the event actually occurred in 1998...
Too bad this isn't any more current than the story. Have they found the WMDs yet?
Rank Presidents by th
I was wondering when Armageddon was gonna come out! Go Bruce Willis, j00 r0x04!
This sig no verb.
Also have you seen the new iMacs? They come in pretty colors!
Heh. I have to wonder if the submitter actually noticed that this was from 98 and just submitted it in order to see if it'd get past the editors...
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Wow, two comets !!! Well, they probably are part of one commet which broke apart, perhaps when it passed Jupiter, -perhaps- even some pieces hit Jupiter and caused the mysterious black spots which have been observed just recently. So, things get really connected on a cosmic scale (or better solar scale).
..looks like most of the CDs I own. Big splotch here, bit splatter there...
"Derp de derp."
The space agency also said the solar gas was directed away from Earth and does not pose a danger to Earth or orbiting astronauts and satellites.
The solar fart, the fart to end all farts, the fart to end humanity, its the type of fart that could crumble the walls at a sewage plant.
well.. the theories about the sun's structure might suggest it to be somewhat difficult for a comet to pass through. Essentially, the sun is dense and massive enough to fuse atoms. I think that alone precludes any sort of object like a comet from passing through.. If single protons and nuetrons have trouble moving around in there.. then any sort of larger matter will too. Maybe it could skim the surface..? (maybe that's what you meant.)
Either way, after seeing the video.. the comets were just consumed by the sun.. they were sucked into it (it appears). Also.. the path from hydrogen to oxygen or even iron is much clearer than the path to uranium. Unless the comet was made of Uranium.. can the sun in its present state make Uranium from it? I don't believe physics "allows" that..
Slashdot is proud to announce it has raised the bar for dupe periodicity, now breaking the 5 year mark. When interviewed, CmdrTaco said "our eventual goal is 25 years. We believe this is a sufficiently long period of time that the dupe will pass under the radars of over 99% of our moderators and readers, especially as most grammar and high school history programs start with events circa 3000bc and invariably the school year ends around or about the time WW II is being covered. Thus for the vast majority of our readers it is impossible for them to have an accurate conceptual framework of recent history. We can monetize this." Darl McBride commented, "this is a good business plan, we here at SCO are pursuing a similar model based on a confusion regarding the history of Unix and Linux".