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Comet Unexpectedly Brightens a Millionfold
swordgeek writes "Comet 17P/Holmes, a relatively obscure and (until a few days ago) dim object, has suddenly flared to be literally a million times brighter, going from magnitude 18 to 2.8. It is just outside of the constellation Perseus, which puts it high in the sky and ideal for viewing at this time of year. The comet still appears starlike even in binoculars but should grow to several arcminutes across over the next few nights. The comet is now readily visible to the naked eye. This is a completely unexpected once-in-a-lifetime event, so get out your finest optics (even if it's just your eyes) and go comet watching!"
i don't think we've seen a really big bright comet in how long? hasn't it been decades, or centuries even? anywhere in the world?
i mean a really big bright one that eats the whole sky
we need a big bright comet because history teaches us that warring factions oftentimes stop their fighting and lay down their arms when shocked at the sight
so we need a big bright comet pronto
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What about in the UK? Where would I need to look to see this thing?
/. is American centered but the world is a pretty big place and those of us not in that continent might like to know where we can/can't see things.
I know
I like muppets.
Perhaps I'll go look. Despite all the hype, Halley was a bust. Kohoutek may have been the comet of the century, but that was last century. I hope this one doesn't disappoint.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
So what could have caused this to happen? No explanation?
Were there any obscure cults waiting for something like this? One similar to Heaven's Gate perhaps?
Does anyone have any idea why this comet has suddenly got so much brighter? Presumably it is flying past a star but surely it would do this on a fairly regular basis.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
in 3.. 2..
I remember a group of people waiting for you. Some 32 people in some large farm house or something in California. All wearing some kind of black clothing and Nike shoes. They took your promise to come in 1999 or so and committed suicide but you are coming so late. OK atleast the rest of the believers can now die and meet you.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
According to SpaceWeather.com, not only did the comet brighten unexpectedly, it "... has no tail, [and] a remarkable golden color ...". Unless the geometry of the sun-earth-comet trio is such that the tail is pointing directly away from the earth, you'd think there'd be a massive tail given the million-fold increase in brightness.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The comet is now readily visible to the naked eye.
WARNING
Do not look into the comet with your remaining eye.
liqbase
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I call the frankincense ....
O! What horrible calamity doth this portend?
More music, fewer hits
Where's the Argo/Yamato? Tell 'em to power up the Wave Motion Gun to deal with this intergalatic menace!
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
You slander Joan Osborne, an excellent r&b singer, and the song's writers. The notion has a good pedigree.
Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:
- That is God.
Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!
- What? Mr Deasy asked.
- A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.
Perhaps it was shot at by the Farside Cannon :)
http://www.sfreviews.net/farsidecannon.html
It's raining and overcast here, you insensitive clod!
(and always is for any significant astronomical phenomenon)
I'm not familiar with the scale used to measure magnitude so I looked it up in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude Can anyone explain to me why it goes -1.7, -0.7, 0, -0.24, 3, 4.6...?
I hope it comes close enough to hitch a ride!
Read Jules Verne "Off on a Comet", at Gutenburg
Decent story if you can get past the antisemitism.
Best of all -- it's free (as in beer and in speech).
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
I once wrote a short story about Jesus living his life in a cheap motel on the edge of Route 66. It was dark and twisted.
IAALS.
i'm talking like this
or this
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...high in the sky and ideal for viewing at this time of year.
On what part of the planet? Northern hemosphere or southern? The Americas or Asia? What time of night (or day)?
In 1974, the American media were excitedly predicting a very bright comet named Kahoutek, and then when it appeared wrote how dissapointing the show was, that it wasn't even visible.
I was in Thailand that year, Kahoutek drowned out all the stars in half the sky there.
Some of you folks need to learn that the internet is a global phenomena and not restricted to your own country. Is this thing visible in my country (US)? What part of the sky, and what time? If I can see it, people in Australia can't.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
for those who operate under the fear of god, you need to make them afraid
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This comet orbits between 2.2 and 5.2 AU and it's last closest approach to the Sun was in May, 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17P/Holmes. An AU is the average distance between the Sun and the Earth.
Comet crusts, the dark stuff that is left over after the ice sublimates, are thought to conduct heat slowly. One theory on why we see outbursts as comets move away from the Sun, as this one is doing, is that the warming pulse from the closest approach takes time to sink down to a reservior of carbon monoxide gas which then sublimate internally and blows off fairly large chunks of the comet. Another theory is that the same thermal pulse reaches a reservior of amorphous water ice, which is more common in space than crystalline ice and thus might be present in comets since their formation. When amorphous ice is warmed, it will become crystalline and release energy because the ordered state of crystaline ice is a lower energy state. This can lead to a chain reaction of further crystallization and energy release that could lead to enough warming to cause sublimation in the interior and then do the same kind of thing as in the carbon monoxide scenario.
--
Get your power from the Sun for what you already pay now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html
needs to be arcing the entire sky
then the bastards who kill in the name of god will be suitably humbled in their superstitious minds
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ill have time this weekend, I think ill get the telescope out and see what I can see.
;)
It is always fun to check out new objects that show up in the sky.
"It was a dark and twisted night..."
You think that's unexpected?
Wait until it suddenly changes direction!
Now thatwill be unexpected!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
The gold color indicates it is the mothership returning from Zeta Reticuli. Prepare to meet our reticuluous overlords!
That should be "reservior of carbon monoxide ice"
here. There was no visible tail, just a fuzzy circle.
So that's why it's going to be cloudy over my area for the foreseeable future?
Never fails.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Was wondering what that gold stationary object I was seeing after 9pm just between those 2 trees was.
Knew it wasn't a planet as none of them seem gold, and planets tend to move with the sky...
Good to know that I can recognize new objects at night without having to be informed of them, prior.
This portends the collapse of the National League. The curse of the Bambino is lifted in spades!
It's firing at us?
-Styopa
Dr Evil: ... and so we will demand... one million dollars! (*laughs evilly*)
Henchman: Um, well, it turns out that a million dollars isn't so much money any more.
Dr Evil: Hmm. In that case... we will demand... fifty cents!!!
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Klingon High Command to Starfleet...Nothing to see here... move along!
All Hail Galactus, Devourer of Worlds!
I was never a big fan of the stuff she did that made the radio...but just about everything else I heard from her was pretty amazing. I wonder what ever happened to her?
A goal is a dream with a deadline
That instantly parch a country that has been soaking the rest of the year, apparently not enough rain falls in the UK to fill the reservoirs enough for those short periods of dryness.
It is kinda amazing this country once ruled the world. Says a lot about the world really.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's Burns-Caulfield!
Terminate and stay resinous.
(Sorry, obscure reference to Illegal Aliens http://www.amazon.co.uk/Illegal-Aliens-Nick-Pollotta/dp/1587157969 I recently read).
taking out another million or two Aku'Ultan.
this sig deleted by another sig
has suddenly flared to be literally a million times brighter,
It's the Silver Surfer! Aaaaah, we're all gonna die when the giant cloud-thing comes and eats our planet.
Last call.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
We've got mixed drinks! Don't forget to put on your black shirts, sweatpants, Nikes and Away Team arm bands before going to bed!
Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, Valhalla's Gate, ufo, ufo, ufo, ufo, ufo, ufo, space alien, space alien, space alien, space alien, space alien, space alien, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, millennium, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, misinformation, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, second coming, second coming, second coming, second coming, second coming, second coming, angels, angels, angels, angels, angels, angels, end times, end times, end times, end times, end times, end times, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, God, God, God, God, God, God
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
you don't have to believe in fairy tales about armageddeon
but you should believe in the power of a bunch of assholes bringing about a self-realizing prophecy. that armageddeon is not true, but enough assholes believing in it makes it true
so you are not safe from their thinking after all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The clock time during which a celestial object is in the sky on any day is essentially the same anywhere in the world. The angle of its path relative to the horizon, and thus rising and setting time, varies with latitude, but the time it reaches its highest point (zenith) in the sky will be at the same clock time. Just like the sun at noontime.
Depending on latitude, its path through the sky may be entirely below the horizon and thus invisible. For example, the Little Dipper "rises", "sets", and "reaches zenith" in the sky of the Southern Hemisphere, but it does so all below the horizon, so it's invisible.
We are approaching a full moon right now, which is the absolute worst time to look for diffuse objects in the sky. :(
My rights don't need management.
I know there's probably an unknown natural, scientific explaination for the huge increase in magnitude but what if that isn't what's happened? I know some of us have put a lot of thought over the years into how to find other life "out there" (if there is any). SETI and those golden records are some great ideas but this is just brilliant! What better way to tell everyone, "Hey! We're over here!" Coming up with a way to increase a relatively innocent space body's magnitude in such a way would certainly get the attention of anyone looking into space especially considering its unprecendented occurrance, speed to "transmission" and relative "bandwidth" of communication.
Most likely Clark Griswald just turned on his Christmas lights.
The comet hasn't brightened. What you're seeing is the afterglow from the nuclear explosion that Bruce Willis set off yesterday.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Is this another one of those weird Astronomer jokes? lol
crap, did anyone go check the zoning laws for the inter-galactic freeway?
Hey, another comet doing extraordinary things. Time for Art Bell to kill another cult of whackos-in-purple-shrouds.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
But given that the UK and US are on the same hemisphere...
:^P
Aren't virtually *any* two places on the globe in the "same hemisphere"?
Yes, I know you meant "Northern hemisphere", but your post prompted the thought.
In related news, Nobel Profit Of Doom, Al "The G in my name is for G Star" Gore, blames the brightening of the comet on global warming.
"We are in serious jeopardy of losing all the comets and other galaxy bodies to global warming. I am declaring a Galaxy Emergency," the sometimes robotic, one-time Presidential candidate said."
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Obviously a ship starting its deceleration burn.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
you can offer, via your own comments that are superior to mine, a superior way of thinking. that would make slashdot safe from my thinking because you've given them a better option
or, you could skulk underneath my comments, blubbering about how much i suck, to absolutely no effect at all, except perhaps as a demonstration that i have a sycophant
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
New Comet Heralds Warning to Humanity....Is Anyone Listening?
Check this out: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index888.htm
Interesting stuff! Eh! Eh! Eh!
... Then maybe the brightness is due to the demon warp dealing... (whatever that means)... (He really writes some weird lyrics, dont he)
This comet isn't exactly one to get hyped about. It's not that bright. Magnitude 3 is about as bright as the Little Dipper. You won't see it from the city and you have to know where to look to identify it from better conditions.
Of course, naked eye comets always get a brief mention in the news, even when dim, but this one caught attention because of the dramatic increase in brightness. It's all the more surprising when you consider that this is a short period comet in a relatively circular orbit. It makes it's close approach to the sun frequently, so it doesn't tend to brighten much as it makes the approach, and it has no tail. Even more remarkable, it's currently moving away from the sun, so it would normally be expected to dim, not brighten. Why? Well, it may have had an unusual outgassing event or have impacted another object. Beyond that, I don't have any good guesses.
The brightest comet in decades was McNaught, which made a show last winter. Unfortunately, it was very close to the sun, so it rose barely after sunrise and set barely after sunset and was therefore hard to observe. However, it quickly got brighter than Venus and eventually was so bright (M -6) that a clever observer in clear, dry air could spot it during the day, a scant few degrees from the sun.
It was a little more friendly to observers in the southern hemisphere, and its huge, striated tail was spectacular. Here's a picture.
Kohoutek wasn't all that bright. Probably the best observer's comet last century was Hale-Bopp, which was very photogenic and had a remarkable double tail. I wasn't alive for Halley, which has a lot of historical significance, but it's latest pass wasn't very impressive.
And what rough beast, his hour come 'round at last, slouches toward ...er, Labrador... to be born?
Bah - you deserve everything you get.
or rather, you don't understand humanity
take the most advanced civilization you can imagine, as free form superstition and organized religion as can be, and still, the psychological effect on your behavior of a big "eye" looking down on you from the heavens would be quite extraordinary
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The /. title "Comet Unexpectedly Brightens a Millionfold" demonstrates a common mistake.
Each "fold" means a doubling, or 2 to the n'th power. For example, three-fold is 8-times. Take a piece of paper and fold it three times- unfold it and count the number of rectangles outlined by the creases. This is where the expression actually came from...
People incorrectly use the "fold" term because they think it sounds more intelligent, but they demonstrate their ignorance by misusing it.
A brighting of 2 to the millionth power would be so massive that we and our entire solar system would be almost instantly vaporized and blown away by the photons striking us.
ron
New planet appears in northern sky, aliens claiming to be from the planet Crikkit contact government, promise to rain destruction on the universe as a whole. Set var=perilsensativesunglasses=1. Where's slaartibartfast and the starship Bistromath when we need them?
Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you...
If the comet reaches Earth it is a WMD.
I think the Russians sneaked off a launch and lit up their own ion engine and have crashed a microwave-sized block of titanium into this comet. They were able to sneak off the launch by hiding the vessel in a fake third stage in the supply shot for the space station. With all the clutter up there, no one noticed the fake third stage slowly drift away a couple years ago.
Yes, indeed. It was the Russians. Or the Chinese. Or India.
Maybe Japan.
Makes me ask--why wasn't it the USA? Because we are focused on sending people to the moon, which is a huge waste of effort and detracts from our development of robots and nanotech and the control of robots.
I think I saw the thing yesterday while my girlfriend was giving birth to our son.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_McNaught
I don't think historically there has ever been a comet that has "eaten the sky".
Old drawings show them as huge things in the sky, however we can't really accept that as a true measure of scale.
Based on observations that have been made since photography was in widespread use, I doubt there has ever been a comet that has "swallowed the sky". Some impressive displays no doubt(Halley's, Hale-Bopp, McNaught) but thats about the extent.
2 to the millionth power would be a gazillion times bigger than the universe would it not?
Or roughly equivalent to a Jiggawatt, yes.
ron
I'm slightly appalled. /. readers, check my grammar and links, and then click submit. Lo and behold, it gets accepted. Cool!
/. editors: If you're going to actually edit submissions (and why start now, after ignoring fundamental grammatical errors and duplicate stories for a decade?) then get it right!
I write up what I consider to be an interesting story for
Then I read what I supposedly wrote, and find that words have been put in my mouth. Specifically:
"The comet still appears starlike even in binoculars but should grow to several arcminutes across over the next few nights. "
I did NOT write that. I didn't suggest it. The comet does NOT appear starlike in binoculars at all--it's quite a clear extended disk. ONE person quoted in Sky & Telescope believes that it will expand to several arcminutes in size, but that's strictly conjecture.
Furthermore, I didn't use the word "millionfold" in my subject line. That was kdawson again.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I saw a very very bright object in the sky early in the morning on the 20th and again in the early hours of the 21st. It was far brighter than Sirrus. I tried looking at star charts to see what it could be. It seemed to be in the Canis Minor constellation, but was too bright to be Procyon. Does anyone know if what I saw might have been this comet?
Just to be clear on something, I never used the word millionfold in my submission. That was kdawson editing my post for his own glory.
Incidentally, the term has been used both ways, and has etymologically distinct roots, so millionfold meaning 'a million times' is valid.
I can't link directly to it, at the sixth entry (-fold) at Miriam Webster's.
Nonetheless, it wasn't my word. Neither was the claim that the comet is 'starlike in binoculars.'
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Johnny Rico: I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say kill 'em all!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Incidentally, the term has been used both ways, and has etymologically distinct roots, so millionfold meaning 'a million times' is valid.
I can't link directly to it, at the sixth entry (-fold) at Miriam Webster's.
Now I'm looking at all this from a humorous point of view, so please don't take this wrong, but just because something is listed in a dictionary does not make it correct. They simply cite common (mis)usage of words.
Case in point: The aforementioned website listing for the word http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/theory/ "theory" indicates it is a synonym for hypothesis, which is absolutely, deadly wrong. The layman misuse of scientific/mathematical terms is pretty frustrating. The meanings of the terms conjecture, hypothesis, and theory are are very distinct and do not overlap, there is no ambiguity here whatsoever.
One of my favorite quotes from Babylon 5 is "If you can not say what you mean, you can never mean what you say". I try my best, but often do not succeed.
ron
Perhaps it's Rama?
A brighting of 2 to the millionth power would be so massive that we and our entire solar system would be almost instantly vaporized and blown away by the photons striking us.
No it wouldn't.
That much light would form a black hole.
In fact not only would the event horizon swallow the solar system, it would engulf the entire universe. It's been a long time since I ran similar calculations, but as I recall out would only take two to the power of a couple hundred for the black hole to engulf the entire universe and then some. Two to the millionth power is big. It is almost infinitely beyond universe devouringly big. It's big. Big with a capital-B Broken Brain Big.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary Threefold \Three"fold`\, a. [OE. [thorn]reofald; cf. AS. [thorn]r[=i]feald.] Consisting of three, or thrice repeated; triple; as, threefold justice.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/threefold threefold 1. three times as great 2. triple
Similar definitions for twofold. Do the "fold" rules change after three?Do we poor fellas on the southern hemisphere miss out AGAIN or are we lucky for once? All the exciting stuff seems to happen on the northern hemisphere. I'm rather astronomically challenged, so I have no clue where to find Perseus and if it is even visible down here.
So, is your girlfriend a virgin?
And they like an etymology geek even less.
:-)
Look it up.
-- the proud owner of a useless Lit degree
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Well, I'd certainly never claim that a dictionary is always definitively correct--there are too many that don't agree with each other for that to be supportable. In this case though (-fold as a suffix), the etymology is quite clear, long, and well-established. The use of "fold" meaning "times " is both historically and etymologically sound. Curiously, it doesn't mention the powers-of-two usage, which is also common and correct--which points to your previous point about dictionaries being noncanonical. I'd like to dig through the OED on this one, just for the fun of it.
:-)
Now on the other hand, I could have referenced the American Heritage dictionary, which would have thrown my arguments and also my personal character into complete disrepute.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Sorry, I said Kahoutek wasn't that bright. I wasn't alive for it and it was supposedly spectacular. I confused it with Hayatuke.
Just hope the US o' A and The Rooskies don't heat it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon_(novel)
I'm sure you're right, but I think that word doesn't mean what you think it means (any longer).
Kinda like spam. In internet terms, it referred exclusively to Usenet abuse. But we must all concede that it now refers to all things internet abuse-y.
expandfairuse.org
It omits the nearly full, nearly perigee moon that is so insanely bright you can't see another thing in the sky.
Oh, well. I guess I'll look again Saturday or Sunday.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
This is a problem with Web 2.0 technology. Wikipedia is not the be-all, end-all of definitions. It also depends on what discipline you are from. Mine, computational mathematics, says that in this case, Ron is correct.
.
Looking at the skyhound and there is one day left to see it. That will be in 10 hours time. The one day of the year it fucking rains in this 'arse-hole of the earth' country. Typical.
.
Nothing. Only when you get outside of civilization are you afflicted with the light pollution from stars hundreds of light years away. Don't worry, this pollution, while unsettling if you weren't expecting it, has no permanent ill effects and clears up again after you return to civilization.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
well, this is slashdot..
Hmm.. Let's see.
It doesn't cost anything == Free as in beer.
I can use it, change it, republish it, however I want and I break no laws == Free as in speech.
Clearly, I don't understand the saying, please explain.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
That's no comet!
kramulous: Note I did not say that ron's definition was wrong, only that it didn't match the sources I checked. No, Wikipedia is not the final arbiter, and I checked (and cited) a more traditional source as well. My real point was that if one is going to make a statement about the wrongness of another's word use, one should back it up. Ron is not the "be-all, end-all" of definitions either. If you want people to learn, point them to useful resources.
But is it as big as the xkcd number? (google it)