Holmes Comet Coma Grows Bigger Than The Sun

coondoggie passed us a NetworkWorld article, as he does, noting that there is now an object in our solar system bigger than Sol. The Holmes comet has a huge coma, with a diameter scientists are now calculating to be larger than our own middle-sized star. "Scientists don't seem to have a guess as to how big it will ultimately become. The Holmes coma's diameter on Nov. 9 was 869,900 miles (1.4 million kilometers), based on measurements by Rachel Stevenson, Jan Kleyna and Pedro Lacerda of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. The sun's diameter, stated differently by various sources, is about 864,900 miles (1.392 million kilometers)."

Comments

Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, don't try to sound cool by calling the sun "Sol". It just sounds pompous.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

it is either the Sun or Sol. There is not like 'the sun' as there are lots of suns.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Until /. has at least one non-earthian member posting, when anyone refers to THE sun, we know which one it is.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

So if it's bigger that Sol, does it look as big as Luna from Terra?

Re:Name

[dotancohen]

Until /. has at least one non-Sol-system member posting, when anyone refers to THE sun, we know which one it is. I live on Mars, but I still call Sol "The Sun". You Earthlings aren't the only ones orbiting Sol.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey now, be easy. Star Control 2 just happened to imprint a little deeper on some.

Re:Name

[leathered]

Indeed, it reminds of a Mexican beer that tastes like soapy piss.

Re:Name

[fm6]

Or maybe less parochial? If there are any inhabitants of planets circling nearby suns, I imagine they'd object to our referring to our sun as the sun.

Which is why SF often refers to "the sun" as "Sol", "the moon" as "Luna", etc. Probably where the poster picked up the habit.

Re:Name

[tjstork]

Or maybe less parochial? If there are any inhabitants of planets circling nearby suns, I imagine they'd object to our referring to our sun as the sun.

It's silly that they do that. We call our Sun, the Sun, and our moon, the Moon. It's simple and its accurate. If the inhabitants of other planets on other stars call their suns something, they could call it whatever they want, and I highly doubt they speak English... We might have to call Rigel "blahtak", or something.

Re:Name

[Cctoide]

I think that would be rather insignificant, considering we'd just have found English-speaking aliens.

Re:Name

[Ngarrang]

Indeed, it reminds of a Mexican beer that tastes like soapy piss.

I do not want to know how you would even know this.

Regarding the use of Sol for the Sun, yeah, it comes off a little pretentious, but it is the name given to it, even if it translates back to 'sun'. Latin names make everything sound cooler, anywho. Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

Re:Name

[fm6]

I'm sure that all aliens within TV range speak English.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to not read the parent post...

Re:Name

[spun]

And we'll just call you 'person' rather than calling you by your name. A sun is a type of thing, Sol is the name of the sun that happens to be closes to us. In any language used by creatures living on planets, there will be a word for 'sun.' But 'Sol' will still be unique. When we have colonies on Mars, what will the people living there be referring to when they say, "The moon has just risen?"

And 'we' do not call our sun, 'the sun,' except in English. Stop being so parochial, I mean, don't you think we should be referring to it in Chinese or something, to be fair? There is nothing pompous about calling it 'Sol.' Except to anti-intellectual types, and I wouldn't think they'd frequent a place like Slashdot.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Except to anti-intellectual types, and I wouldn't think they'd frequent a place like Slashdot."

You're new here, I take it.

Re:Name

[drfireman]

I inhabit a planet circling a nearby "sun." Actually, we call our "sun" Sol, and we find it a little insulting that your SF writers have assumed the name was unclaimed. Stop it. We don't call our "moon" Luna, so you're safe there, but I have to say, on behalf of my people, that it sounds stupid, and "moon" wasn't taken anyway (we call our little satellite thing "Kodak"). There's lots of other stuff you guys have wrong, too, but here on our planet we're not really supposed to be reading Slashdot during work hours. Maybe I'll post from home later.

Re:Name

[spun]

I've been here since Chips & Dips. The reason I keep coming back is because, in general, people here respect intelligence. If you haven't noticed that, maybe it's because you don't have anything people here respect. Sure, there are dumb-asses here, but that happens anytime you get enough people together. They generally aren't tolerated. And 'doesn't agree with my pet political, philosophical, scientific, or social theories' is not the same as 'anti-intellectual.'

Re:Name

[PCM2]

A sun is a type of thing, Sol is the name of the sun that happens to be closes to us.

Got any data to back that up? I know they call it Sol a lot in sci-fi paperbacks and on Star Trek, but do any scientists actually use that designation?

Re:Name

[Belial6]

Unless Gene Roddenberry is correct, and somehow every creature in the galaxy speaks English, I would say that not only would they not be offended by the word Sun being use to describe the star that we circle, but they might just be willing to call our glichblick'click'click by the same name we use, which is Sun. The big fiery ball in the sky is called Sun by [pulling number out of ass] 99.9% of all English speaking humans. That means that in English, the big fiery ball in the sky's name is... That's right... "Sun". One could even go so far as to say when a 'scientist' refers to any other stars as a sun, they are more incorrect, in that both in English, and the language that 'Sol' speakers use, the big fiery balls that populate the galaxy are "stars"

One could go so far as to argue that the word 'sun' is in fact a pronoun. A word that describes the star that you happen to be circling at the moment. Of course if you were to take that route, it would re-enforce the GP posters comment that this was someone being pompous. It rings of the kid that when talking to his siblings, refers to his Mom as Nancy, and his Dad as Bob. While that may more accurately be their names, it is an indication that there is something strange going on in the kids head that makes them compelled to prove some kind of point.

Whether you agree or not, feel free to to contradict me, as the best part of these kinds of 'nerd fights' are that the answer really doesn't matter, so it also doesn't matter what side you pick to argue. Weeee!!!!!

Re:Name

[Fieryphoenix]

No, there's only one sun. There are lots of stars though, and we eventually figured out that the sun was one of them.

Look up "sun" in a dictionary and you might see a note that it is often capitalized, but it doesn't have to be, moreover it is itself never referred to as sun, it is always "the sun".

Re:Name

[spun]

Hmm, you know, I just took it for granted that scientists call it that because science journalists tend to call it that at least as often as they call it the sun. And 'Sol' means 'Sun' in Latin, and scientists love to use Latin. It also means sun in most Latin derived languages, so even if there are no English speaking scientists who call it sol, there are many scientists who have no other word for it.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

If Spanish people aren't Jewish, then why do they call their son "sol"?

Benny Hill

Re:Name

[foobsr]

In any language used by creatures living on planets, there will be a word for 'sun.'

It seems there (probably) exist 'ejected' planets which could sustain life.

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/070910_sunless-planets.htm

Apart from that, it is likely to be difficult to make predictions with regard to language (Living without Numbers or Time).

CC.

Re:Name

[ignavus]

If you live on Terra, does that make you a Terraling?

Re:Name

[Jarjarthejedi]

"When we have colonies on Mars, what will the people living there be referring to when they say, "The moon has just risen?""

Who knows? Considering Mars has two moons they could be referring to either one.

(Sorry, but I just couldn't resist nitpicking the nitpicking :P)

Re:Name

[JorDan Clock]

No, it makes you a Terran.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was a Joke of Opportunity.

Re:Name

[fm6]

Hey, get your pop culture references straight. The aliens on Star Trek don't speak English, their voices are automatically translated by the "universal translator" which also has the ability to warp the light around their faces so their lips stay in sync with the English version of what they're saying.

Re:Name

[h4rm0ny]

A sun is a type of thing, Sol is the name of the sun that happens to be closes to us.

Oh no! No. This is as bad as all those people who have started pronouncing Uranus "your-an-us" rather than "your-a-nus" because they think it sounds more scientific that way. As if sounding "scientific" is a good thing as opposed to trying to make things as understandable as possible (and funny). A sun is not a type of thing. You can say it to mean that, put it with a lower case 's' and people will know what you mean, but we have a word that specifically means that with no ambiguity and the word is star. We have been calling the Sun "the Sun" for a long, long time. Other languages have their own words for the Sun and they are direct equivalents. They don't mean "stars" or even "stars with planets around them." Each word means, quite specifically The Sun. And the interesting thing is that one of those languages is Latin and its word for the Sun is "Sol." It is the direct equivalent word with the same meaning. Why you think translating something into another language is suddenly correct and using the native word incorrect I don't know. But I am suspicious that it is that same creeping desire on the part of some people to sound "scientific." The English speaking world has used the Sun for centuries quite happily without any ambiguity which has appeared out of nowhere in recent years.

The overwhelming majority of English speakers call it the Sun and don't mean stars and wouldn't think to mean stars. Almost nobody calls it Sol. Why introduce confusion?

The Sun. The Stars. Uranus [rude pronunciation].

Thank you.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

no - i think it makes you a terraist... (your president W. refers to these people a lot)

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to not read the parent post...

Way to not read the post you are accusing of not reading the parent post.

Re:Name

[magarity]

Where were you to back me up when the geology teacher in grade 11 asked on a quiz 'what is the name of the star this planet orbits?' He marked me wrong for putting 'Sol' instead of 'the Sun' (same for Luna and Terra on the same quiz). I pointed out the name of the thing was indeed 'Sol' and that putting 'the' in front of it meant the word sun wasn't a proper name. He admitted that even though I was technically correct it wasn't the answer he was looking for so 10% off for each of the 3 anyway. Now THAT shit was pompous.
 
Damn, I hated high school.

Re:Name

[brown-eyed slug]

Or a Terrarist?

Re:Name

[LordSnooty]

Exactly, people use the non-rude pronunciation precisely to avoid sniggering and off-topic giggles about butts. It's not about sounding scientific as such.

Re:Name

[Belial6]

Actually, the implanted universal translator didn't come into wide use until TNG, so that would be sometime around Stardate 41153. In episode 31 Stardate 3219.4 of TOS, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Nancy Hedford, used what at that time was, although crude, a state of the art Universal Translator to understand what the energy creature was after. At this time everyone in the galaxy was speaking English. So we can conclude that up until at least Stardate 3000, English was the common language among all intelligent humanoids in the universe, and that it wasn't until the introduction of the Universal Translator that other more localized languages really came into play. Of course by Stardate 41153, the reliance on the Universal Translator had become so common that it was actually required for most communication amongst the various races.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

What scares me more than you having that marked wrong is that you actually had a quiz in 11th grade that required you to correctly identify the sun, moon, and earth. Shouldn't that be 2nd or 3rd grade material?

Re:Name

[fishbowl]

>Look, don't try to sound cool by calling the sun "Sol". It just sounds pompous.

I like to call it "Ra", without a trace of irony.

Re:Name

[krotkruton]

Wish I had mod points for ya (and this post is meant as support). While I don't think there's really anything wrong with calling the Sun "Sol" instead, it's definitely not correct to claim that that is the correct name.

It's kind of like the the Devil. Capitalized, it's basically the same as Satan or a variety of other names and refers to a specific entity. When written as "devil", it can mean a demon or a generic evil creature, although demon is the more generic term. The Devil is a demon, but he is a specific demon even if his name can also be used as a thing.

The Sun is similar. The Sun is a specific star. There are lots of other stars, but there is only one Sun. When written as "sun", it can mean a star with planetary bodies orbiting it, but star is still the generic term. In the dictionaries I just checked, Sol is rarely mentioned as a name for the Sun, and when it is mentioned, it is to say that it is a name for the Sun. I haven't found one that says Sol is the name for the star at the center of our solar system.

Re:Name

[digitalchinky]

I call it 'the shitter' and you call it the 'Throne Room' :-)

Re:Name

[krotkruton]

Sorry, but personally I think your teacher was generous in only taking 10% off. If you look those three words up in a dictionary, you won't fine any that definitions that describe the Sun, the Moon, or the Earth. The Sun is a star, the Moon is a satellite, and the Earth is a planet. Those are the proper names for those specific bodies in our solar system.

Luna is the goddess of the moon who was sometimes personified the moon. Sol is similar for the Sun, both in Roman mythology. Their Greek counterparts are Selene/Artemis and Helios/Apollo, which preceded the Romans. In some myths, Helios is thought to ride a chariot across the sky during the day, shining light on the Earth, so some people at the time considered the Sun to be Helios. This translated to the Roman Sol, and apparently still has some power.

Those words do not refer directly to the Earth, Sun, and Moon. While there is no mythology behind the word terra that I could find, the confusion there most likely comes from its synonyms: earth, soil, land, among others. Terra is sometimes used to refer to earth (terraform), but that's because it's a Latin derivative. And notice I used "earth" and not "Earth" there, because it means land.

Re:Name

[mfnickster]

I pointed out the name of the thing was indeed 'Sol' and that putting 'the' in front of it meant the word sun wasn't a proper name.

But some proper nouns do have 'the' in front of them - for example, 'The Bronx' and 'The Hague.'

Re:Name

[RajivSLK]

Yes, but did you allow for the possibility that all of aliens possessed a universal translator of sorts? Perhaps the TOS crew and the aforementioned energy creature were the only people not have such a device?

The translators worked so well that you (and Kirk) simply didn't notice them.

Re:Name

[AJWM]

Which non-rude pronunciation is that, "urine us" or "your anus" ?

Re:Name

[ehlo]

Its called Sol in swedish!

Re:Name

[tjstork]

And we'll just call you 'person' rather than calling you by your name. A sun is a type of thing, Sol is the name of the sun that happens to be closes to us. In any language used by creatures living on planets, there will be a word for 'sun.' But 'Sol' will still be unique. When we have colonies on Mars, what will the people living there be referring to when they say, "The moon has just risen?"


The name of the Sun is, in fact, "The Sun". The name of the Moon, is, "The Moon". The name of somebody else's sun is the name the star, like "Rigel", or "Sirius".

No, on Mars, they would say, "Deimos and Phobos" have risen, and on Earth, they will say, the "Moon" has risen.

Sorry, but, I see no reason to budge on an obvious name that has worked pretty darned well, just to make a few astronomers happy about a consistent naming convention. Besides, Luna is practically Latin for Moon anyway, so what's the difference?

Sol and Luna are absolutely stupid.

Re:Name

[tjstork]

And 'we' do not call our sun, 'the sun,' except in English.

By the way, the naming convention of "first in class" is also used in shipbuilding. There is a USS Nimitz, and, then, there is a Nimitz class carrier. The British came up with the first in class naval tradition and we copied it. For example, during World War II, they had the King George V, and the King George V class battleship.

So, to call the Sun a sun and the Moon the moon is entirely accurate and consistent with the human tradition. Certainly, if a bunch of drunken sailors can handle these names, and have for hundreds of years, would it be so difficult for astronomers to pick it up!

Re:Name

[turbidostato]

"So if it's bigger that Sol, does it look as big as Luna from Terra?"

It's Tierra, you insensitive clod!

Re:Name

[turbidostato]

"Latin names make everything sound cooler, anywho."

Quid quid latinum dictus sit, altur videtur

Hey! You're right!

Re:Name

[turbidostato]

"It's silly that they do that. We call our Sun, the Sun, and our moon, the Moon"

I'd say that's not the case. We call other planetary systems' main stars "suns" because of the Sun and we call other planets' satellites "moons" because of the Moon, not the other way around.

Re:Name

[turbidostato]

"but do any scientists actually use that designation?"

You can bet any Spanish scientist will call it that way, since the Sun name in Spanish is... "Sol" as well as Moon's translation is "Luna".

Re:Name

[h2k1]

Come on guys, do you know that sol is not science fiction not even pompous posting, it is actually the name of the star that the english-based speakers pompously call "Sun", only in another language, in this case, portuguese. Next time, RTFM before diverging from the topic.

Re:Name

[jschrod]

Too bad that this universal translator did not also warp the light appropriately for the German version.

What? You say that the German version was not created by a universal translator, but by a dubious low-tech process called dubbing? Do you really want to destroy all my childhood beliefs?

Re:Name

[shadowbearer]

  Up the Sagan RPMs. (quantum linked spin?)

The overwhelming majority of English speakers call it the Sun and don't mean stars and wouldn't think to mean stars. Almost nobody calls it Sol. Why introduce confusion?

  If you are arguing against the inclusion of new terms in the english language resulting from the discoveries about the reality we live in, your cause is already lost ;)

SB

Re:Name

[QuietObserver]

Actually, the first definition of sun is "the central body of a solar system" (The New American Websters Handy College Dictionary Third Edition, 1995, p657). Therefore, there is more than one sun. We call it "the sun" however, because it is ours.

Re:Name

[QuietObserver]

Even fake Latin somehow sounds cooler, too.

From the Red Green show: Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati.

When all else fails, play dead.

Re:Name

[PCM2]

Right, but since we're all writing in English... it's just the Sun. Even if it "doesn't have a name," it's not confusing to most people because we call all the rest of them "stars."

Re:Name

[Max Littlemore]

No, there's only one sun.
...
...it is always "the sun".

And there is only one fridge because in my house when someone says "where's the milk?" the answer is usually "in the fridge."

Re:Name

[ceoyoyo]

I could very well be wrong, but sol is also spanish for sun, isn't it?

So a lot of Spaniards have been calling it sol for quite a while. :P

Re:Name

[pyrrhonist]

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

I have just one response to a mugger with a catapult that wants to shoot a giant rock at my head:

Podex perfectus es!

Re:Name

[h4rm0ny]

What "new discoveries about the reality we live in" ? That the Sun is a star? Doesn't mean that we have to stop calling it the Sun and give it a new name. And in fact we didn't. The Sun has been known to be a star for a long time and remained being called the Sun. That other stars can have planets in orbit around them? Did that mean we suddenly stopped calling them stars and had to call them 'suns'. No. I don't get how needing to find new names for new phenomenon applies here. The word Sun has applied specifically to our own star for all of the history of the English language.

Re:Name

[Anzya]

Actually in Swedish the word for Sun is Sol so we are already using the right name. Do not drag us into your english centered world. It's as bad as thinking that the aliens will talk english ;)

Re:Name

[jweatherley]

I studied Astronomy at university. It was quite a long time ago, so I've forgotten most of it. However, I do remember that the lecturers refered to the hot, yellow, burny thing as the sun, and not Sol. Sol is for Sci-Fi, computer games and Spaniards.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

The two dominant pronunciations seem to be your-anus and your-an-ass.

Re:Name

[chuckT]

For the love of God, there are clearly far too many INTJs here:

Big bright objects: stars

Nearest big bright object: sun

Nearest big bright object for any human being in history, and for the foreseeable future: The Sun

Disambuguation if, (having invented FTL, and/or are a character in a novel) you happen to be in orbit around another big bright shiny thing, and are referring to "The Sun" rather than "the sun": Sol

Sheesh.

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

You may think it's pompous. I like it. What can I say?

I'm a Sol Man. (da da da dada da da...)

Re:Name

[spun]

Man this thread is boring and pointless. You say potato, I say potahto. Let's call the whole thing off. Anyway, Sol or the Sun both are perfectly acceptable. You know why I like Sol? It's four characters shorter than "the sun." That simple.

Re:Name

[spun]

Hmph. Are you seriously saying that Sol isn't acceptable in English? Because I've been hearing it used all my life. Plus, one has to say, "The sun." Few proper names take the definite article. Plus, "Sol" is four characters shorter.

Re:Name

[vipz]

Another example of the "first in class" naming convention I can think of is the "Golf Klasse" - that's what the Germans refer to the compact hackbacks as.

Re:Name

[BlackJedi]

Those words [Luna, Sol, Terra] do not refer directly to the Earth, Sun, and Moon. Not true. While Luna was the Roman personification of the Moon, the word "luna" means simply "the Moon". Same for "sol", which means "the Sun" as well as being personification of the Sun, and "terra", which means "the Earth; the world" as well as ground, region, territory, and the personification of the Earth.

Re:Name

[h4rm0ny]

But if we reach another star system, then that star will already have a name that can be used. It doesn't have to start sharing the definition of the Sun. And Sol is actually the word for the Sun in some other languages. The chances of ancient Romans colonising Alpha Centauri is probably slim, but if you have a conversation with any spanish or italian speaking people there you're going to have one Hell of a frustrating conversation.
"That's not Sol, that's sol."
"Qué?"
"The planet we came from goes around Sol. This is sol."
"Qué?"
"Sol is not sol and sol is not Sol. Sol doesn't actually mean Sol, it means..."
*bang*

For pity's sake, refer to things by their name - "Sun" if you're speaking english.

If we ever need a word to mean 'local star' we'll come up with something new. Sheesh! ;)

Re:Name

[amRadioHed]

In any language used by creatures living on planets, there will be a word for 'sun.' But 'Sol' will still be unique. Don't be so sure of that. Won't you feel foolish when we find out that "sol" is the word Andromedians use to refer to the central star in any solar system.

When we have colonies on Mars, what will the people living there be referring to when they say, "The moon has just risen?" I think it's safe to assume they are referring to the moon in the sky outside their bedroom window. I can't imagine how that could ever be confusing. We are already aware of other moons in the solar system and yet the phrase "the moon" doesn't result in any confusion.

Re:Name

[krotkruton]

I love when people nitpick a tiny point instead of the general argument, but you're wrong except for in the case of Sol, although "the Sun" is not the most common definition for it. Please provide a reference that says "Luna means simply the Moon" or "Terra means the Earth". Those are not the common definitions by any means, and please don't confuse translations between languages and definitions of words.

In other news...

[explosivejared]

Sol now jealous of the precocious, scampy little comet's meteoric rise in popularity and size has become addicted to painkillers and alcohol. Friends close to the star hope to be able to talk the down-and-out celestial body into going to rehab.

Re:In other news...

[john83]

Nah, it'll just resort to using a cane and become bitter and hilariously sarcastic.

Re:In other news...

[techpawn]

Leave the Sun Alone!!! It loves its Aunt! It's been going through a divorce! You don't know it so you can't judge it!

I know I'm going to hell

Re:In other news...

[EmperorKagato]

I tried to take Sol to rehab but it said "no, no, no."

Re:In other news...

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> ...going to rehab.

Or at least the fat farm. 864,900 miles in diameter, jeeze!

Re:In other news...

[o'reor]

Sol now jealous of the precocious, scampy little comet's meteoric rise in popularity and size

... and you forgot to mention the "Enl4rg3 y0ur coma" spam mail that Sol has now started to receive...

Re:In other news...

[treeves]

Sol doesn't have a coma. It has a corona! Even better!

Re:In other news...

[jamstar7]

With or without lemon?

Re:In other news...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Sol now jealous of the precocious, scampy little comet's meteoric rise in popularity and size has become addicted to painkillers and alcohol. Friends close to the star hope to be able to talk the down-and-out celestial body into going to rehab.

...before he burns out.

Old Sol gets his comeuppance

[wsanders]

I welcome our giant comet overlords. When we are put to work to toil in their ice and ammonia mines, or whatever this comet is made of, we can say to ourselves, 'This sure beats working on the surface of the Sun, we sure put one over on old Sol!"

Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool Aid

[ackthpt]

Seriously, I hope people can behave themselves this time. We don't need another comet memory tainted by religious fruitcakes.

No fear

[g4sy]

I'm going back to freshman level science classes here but since most comets never come near the sun, but stay way out in never-never land, we have nothing to be afraid of her, right? Also, when comets DO come in for a pass at the sun (which is in theory possible for this guy) they condense and their centres form masses of ice and other solids. So this thing would shrink significantly if it ever did come in for a visit. Very cool piece of trivia though. I'm going to try using it this weekend

Re:No fear

[ackthpt]

I'm going back to freshman level science classes here but since most comets never come near the sun, but stay way out in never-never land, we have nothing to be afraid of her, right? Also, when comets DO come in for a pass at the sun (which is in theory possible for this guy) they condense and their centres form masses of ice and other solids. So this thing would shrink significantly if it ever did come in for a visit. Very cool piece of trivia though. I'm going to try using it this weekend

Shrink? Well, loose mass it would. The tail is the matter leaving the body of the comet. It is possible, while at aphelion the comet has sufficient gravity to attract more matter in the Oort cloud. But it is most likely comets have a limited life. So many trips around and they have evaporated.

The cool thing about these comets is they may leave a legacy. A legacy of meteor showers. (c=

Re:No fear

[idlemind]

You are so getting laid this weekend!

Re:No fear

[computational super]

Well, loose mass it would.

I thought dead you were, Master Yoda.

Re:No fear

[Rei]

Unfortunately, Holmes doesn't even make it inside the orbit of Mars.

Still amazing, though. I think it's incredible that after all this time, I can still see it in-city with the naked eye, a faint blur like someone took a pencil eraser to a star, growing ever-closer to Mirfak. And it's so well situated for evening viewing these days, too.

Re:No fear

[davidsyes]

Veronica (Mars) has an icy halo? Poor Holmes. Can't wag its tail.

Re:No fear

[shadowbearer]

  The funny thing is, Holmes does have a short (and apparently stable) orbit. Which implies it's been close to the sun for quite a while, and should be relatively "geologically" stable as comets go.

  The only other very apparent apparition of it was when it was undergoing another outburst.

  Yet, I've heard very few people proposing impact as a cause for this one or the one more than a century ago.

  Of course I've not had the time to look into it as much as I'd like, am I missing some serious discussions?

SB

Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[gardyloo]

Yes, this is pedantic, but by practically any definition (even leaving aside unbounded electromagnetic radiation or mass), Sol is FAR larger than the comet. The very fact that the comet HAS a tail of sorts speaks to the influence of the solar wind.

      I'd guess that the diameter that most people talk about when they're discussing the sun is that determined by the mean-free scatting path length of photons produced within the sun. Once the photons' probability for escaping the sun is higher than that for being scattered back into the interior, that's what we usually call the "diameter", and it accounts for the relatively sharp "edge" to the sun.

      I could release a bunch of helium atoms on Earth's surface, and eventually they'd diffuse enough to be effectively larger than the sun's "diameter" as defined in the articles. It still doesn't mean a whole lot.

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[explosivejared]

Wait a minute are you saying we shouldn't play around with measurements in order to produce cute sounding phrases like "bigger than the sun" or "a whole library of congress a minute?" What an elitist jerk you must be. The average man thinks of celestial bodies in terms of number of times the sun would envelop/fit inside it. The average man also thinks of amounts of data in terms of libraries of congress. Geez... you are so out of touch.

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[gardyloo]

mean-free scatting path length Gaaagh! I want my local star neither improvising vocal jazz nor, um, whatever else that word might refer to. Sorry.

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[dotancohen]

Measuring by mass, the sun is the largest object in the solar system. But the term "large", when used without specifying which measurement is being referred to, usually refers to length. Thus, for solar objects, diameter. By that measurement, Holmes is technically larger than the sun. The sun remains, however, more massive.

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think his point is that there are lots of ways to measure diameter. If a tail is part of a comet's length, then is the solar wind part of a star's diameter? You can answer that, sure, but any answer is going to be arbitrary.

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[davidsyes]

As for...

"The average man thinks of celestial bodies in terms of number of times the sun would envelop/fit inside it. The average man also thinks of amounts of data in terms of libraries of congress. Geez... you are so out of touch."

Supply the elitist with this....

Girth? What size drill/tap bit?

Hell, the Holmsean man thinks of scexlestial bodies in terms of number of times the body would encompass his attached comet inside it. The Holmsean man also thinks of amounts of data in terms of masses of globules of ass-steroids. Geez... he needs to get more "in touch" with himself, eh?

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the term "large", when used without specifying which measurement is being referred to, usually refers to length. Thus, for solar objects, diameter. By that measurement, Holmes is technically larger than the sun.

This depends - as the parent post already pointed out - entirely on how you define the diameter of the object in question. And - again, as the parent post already pointed out - the diameter of the sun is usually defined by that part of the sun which emits most of the photons that reach us from the sun. By most other definitions - and there are lots of them that do make sense - the diameter of the sun is larger. Much larger, in fact.

Incidentally, if you define the diameter of the sun using a measure that more-or-less matches the one used for defining the diameter of a comet's coma - namely, the diameter of the gas cloud emitted by the object in question - you'll get the entire heliosphere. Which is way larger than the coma of 17P/Holmes.

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[gstoddart]

I'd guess that the diameter that most people talk about when they're discussing the sun is that determined by the mean-free scatting path length of photons produced within the sun.

Eeeww!!

Photon poo everywhere!! :-P

Cheers

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[Tablizer]

I'd guess that the diameter that most people talk about when they're discussing the sun is that determined by the mean-free scatting path length of photons produced within the sun. Once the photons' probability for escaping the sun is higher than that for being scattered back into the interior, that's what we usually call the "diameter",

De-geek-ification: "The width of the shiney round part."

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[jan de bont]

"Velocity of the bullet?", he says, "A bit hard to define. Do you mean in relation to my chest or the surface of the earth or the surrounding solar wind? Yes, I'm being pedantic, but one has to subtract out the rotational velocity of the earth, which depends on lon..."

Suddenly, he falls over dead. By any practical definition.

There are definitions that just make sense and do not need to be nit-picked. The visible diameter of the sun and the visible diameter of Holmes comet's coma is one such definition. Point out another comet in the last 100 (or 1000?) years or so that fits this definition.

+5 Informative? Sheesh... Where are the Robot Chicken A--hole Police when you really need them?

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[osu-neko]

Not really, no. Using the same standards for measurement, the diameter of the sun is over 800,000 miles, whereas the diameter of the comet is only a few miles. OTOH, if you want to include the coma, then the diameter of Holmes is over 800,000 miles, but the diameter of the sun is over ten billion miles (assuming you measure the short distance across the coma/heliopause and not down the length of their respective tails).

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[dotancohen]

Incidentally, if you define the diameter of the sun using a measure that more-or-less matches the one used for defining the diameter of a comet's coma - namely, the diameter of the gas cloud emitted by the object in question - you'll get the entire heliosphere. Which is way larger than the coma of 17P/Holmes. You are 100% right. The paper's authors, like the pro-Palestinian media and NASA rover-making engineers, used a double standard to make a headline-grabbing point. I'd mod you if I hadn't already posted here. Can somebody mod parent for me?

Re:Diameter? A bit hard to define.

[dryeo]

You mean like Hale-Bopp in 1995? http://cometography.com/lcomets/1995o1.html. The great comet of 1811 was another one.

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[winkydink]

Hey, I'll wear the Nike's but there's no way I'm cutting my nuts off.

oblig

[Joe the Lesser]

Man: Every once and a while we dump a big piece of ice in the ocean, solving our problems once and for all.
Girl: But...
Man: ONCE AND FOR ALL!

Re:oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

why dont you people credit your sources - that quote is from futurama...

Re:oblig

[StringBlade]

Because you wouldn't get geek cred for citing your cultural sources. If you're "in" you'll know the source, if you're not, well then you probably wouldn't get it anyway.

Not being flamebait here, just stating the unspoken (am I losing geek cred for pointing this out?).

Re:oblig

[Fmuctohekerr]

I was going to ask if I could get "in" the cool geek club... because I found this pretty easily on this "google" thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8oe-CSA4wQ

But you were right, I didn't get it.

*sigh*

That's one HUGE ASS!

[Ang31us]

Hot, damn! That tail is bigger than the Sun! ;-)

Cool, in theory

[Otter]

I guess that's interesting on some level, but for all the fuss about this comet I was expecting something more Hale-Boppish. Not just some barely visible, round blur.

Re:Cool, in theory

[Anonymous Coward]

El cuarto de tula
Le cogio candela
Se quedo dormida y no
Apago la vela

Love those guys

Re:Cool, in theory

[Abcd1234]

You don't find a fairly run-of-the-mill comet suddenly displaying a massive outburst and a million-fold increase in brightness, along with a truly *massive* coma, fascinating?

TBH, your post belies an attitude which saddens me... the fact that the visual impact of thing is more important than the scientific reality of it. It's part of the reason I avoid showing people nebulae and star clusters in my telescope. While they are scientifically fascinating objects, they simply don't have the real-life impact that the Hubble program has caused people to come to expect.

Re:Cool, in theory

[NeMon'ess]

You have a device that delivers visual stimulation. If the stimulation isn't impressive visually, people aren't going to want to look at it.

Re:Cool, in theory

[Otter]

TBH, your post belies an attitude which saddens me... the fact that the visual impact of thing is more important than the scientific reality of it.

It's not a matter of "more important", just that astrophysics and stargazing are two different things. The pulsar with planets is cool, even if we can't look up and see it. But Holmes has been hyped for its visual impact, which I'd say is .. lacking.

Re:Cool, in theory

[Abcd1234]

But Holmes has been hyped for its visual impact, which I'd say is .. lacking.

Well, I think it's more accurate to say that, unlike, say, Hale-Bopp or Hyukatake, the visual impact of Holmes can only be truly appreciated if you understand the science of it. Consider, the coma of this thing is *huge*. Sure, it may look like a fuzzy ball, but it's a fuzzy ball with a truly massive angular extent, generated by an object that's barely resolvable as a point in an average telescope. That's pretty freakin' cool, if you ask me. But I'll agree it doesn't have the same aesthetic appeal as some more visually impressive comets.

Re:Cool, in theory

[Anomylous Howard]

I think you meant *voluminous*, not *massive*.

Re:Cool, in theory

[fyngyrz]

You have a device that delivers visual stimulation. If the stimulation isn't impressive visually, people aren't going to want to look at it.

For those sighted adults to whom this isn't impressive visually, the situation has revealed people who have a woefully insufficient education, or an inability to comprehend the information conveyed by that education. The only choices remaining are, should we continue to let them go about their business, should we attempt remedial education, or should we put them down as a simple matter of compassion?

Re:Cool, in theory

[Armchair Dissident]

Not just some barely visible

A new Magnitude three star in Perseus - i.e., a new naked-eye object - is hardly "barely visible". It's highly visible, and is not only completely un-missable, it's also clearly not a star to the naked eye. Even through binoculars this thing takes up a huge field of view.

Barely Visible? Have you even looked at the thing, or anything vaguely resembling Perseus recently?

Re:Cool, in theory

[Otter]

Perhaps you live someplace much more rural than I do? Here, Holmes is visible if you know where and what you're looking for. But it's not something you'd ever notice by looking up, the way you could with Hale-Bopp.

(Most of the "OMG, I SAW TEH COMET!!!!" conversation I've heard is from people who probably saw Mars instead, but from your description, you obviously are at least talking about the actual comet.)

Editors... puleeeeeze..

[ZipprHead]

But was the "coma" medically induced?

That's a big one

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly named after John Holmes...

Re:That's a big one

[Anonymous Coward]

But should have been named after John Hughes, who dazzled us with great teenage movies.

Re:That's a big one

[aug24]

Heh, someone English has mod points ;-)

Definition trouble.

[Sitnalta]

That's a bit of a stretch calling this thing bigger than the sun when it really isn't a cohesive single structure. We certainly don't count our atmosphere when we measure the diameter of the Earth.

Re:Definition trouble.

[lexarius]

Exactly. The sun's atmosphere also extends well past the known solar system, and Wikipedia tells me that the heliospheric current sheet is the largest structure in the solar system.

Re:Definition trouble.

[Mundocani]

I know you guys are right and all, but this is more of a fun factoid than some sort of scientific claim. Yeah, the sun is bigger, and has magnetic fields and winds and has tons more mass and everything, but as an amateur astronomer (very amateur), I still find it fascinating just how large the thing has become since exploding only a few weeks ago. That it's larger than the "visible" sun is, to me, just wild -- even if it is nothing but a huge bubble with very little substance.

Re:Definition trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should note that the current size of the comet's coma isn't from the explosion in October, but rather from material that has been given off over some time.

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[WormholeFiend]

but you WILL drink the Kool-Aid, right?

OBLIGATORY

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!!!

Re:OBLIGATORY

[mrjb]

Don't panic. Hey- where did the dolphins go?

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you've got it all wrong. All you religious fruitcakes^wfanatics^wadherrants, this a sign from God. You should kill yourselves immediate to return to His grace.

The comet is large...

[JJRRutgers]

It is so large that a million suns would fit inside....

Re:The comet is large...

[porkThreeWays]

pfft, my pet nibbler's turd weigh as much as that.

Mod parent up

[PhxBlue]

Sitnalta's point is especially true when you consider how close to nothing a comet's coma really is. The closest thing to "nothing" we can manage on Earth still has a lot more stuff in it than the coma of a comet.

Re:Mod parent up

[Gilmoure]

The closest thing to "nothing" we can manage on Earth...

A user's comprehension?

Misleading

[shafty023]

The title of this story is very misleading. The comet is not larger than our sun. It is wider in diameter, not in radius. Sure that's an impressive thing but I'd rather not hear about it unless it's radius grows larger than the sun. In the meantime, marvel over a comet with a long tail of crap

Re:Misleading

[gardyloo]

The comet is not larger than our sun. It is wider in diameter, not in radius. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Misleading

[Bob-taro]

Sure that's an impressive thing but I'd rather not hear about it unless it's radius grows larger than the sun. In the meantime, marvel over a comet with a long tail of crap

They are saying the comet's coma is bigger than the sun, not it's nucleus or it's "long tail of crap".

Re:Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? You're kidding right? d=2r

diameter of the sun ... 864,900 mi.
radius of the sun ... 432,450 mi.

diameter of Johnny Holmes ... 869,900 mi.
radius of Johnny Holmes ... 434,950 mi.

In conclusion, the diameter of John Holmes is 2,500 miles bigger than the diameter of the sun. But we all knew that anyway right?

"Bigger than..."

[RealGrouchy]

So we'll have to revise the list, then?

1. Beatles
2. Jesus
3. Holmes Comet
4. Sun

- RG>

Re:"Bigger than..."

[dotancohen]

0. Oasis ("We're bigger than the Beatles")

Re:"Bigger than..."

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot Oasis.

HAHAHA

Re:"Bigger than..."

[statemachine]

If "more popular than" means "bigger than," then sure. Just another misquote that persisted too long.

http://students.ceid.upatras.gr/~pirli/beatles/jesus.html

On March 4, 1966, in an interview printed in the London Evening Standard, John Lennon made the following statement:

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

The statement, being part of a two page interview, went unnoticed in Britain at the time.

John had said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus meaning that Christianity (and religion in general) were getting so weak and unpopular that a rock 'n' roll group (the Beatles) were more popular than it at the time. He just said it as an example to make his point, that Christianity was not popular among young people, and he certainly didn't want to compare the Beatles with Jesus or to show off himself as being better or greater than Jesus. But when the above statement was printed out of context in Anerican teen Magazine "Datebook" a few months later, great uproar broke out.

Don't forget to add "television" to your list.

I'll refrain from mentioning Al Gore. d'oh!

Johnny Wadd

[fuzznutz]

Something named after John Holmes has to be big.

Correct != pompous

[Anonymous Coward]

Our sun's name is "Sol." It is correct to call it by its proper name.

I don't think it makes the speaker sound pompous at all. Appealing to one's own ethos to strengthen an argument makes someone sound pompous. Quoting the law to justify an opinion about morality makes someone sound pompous. Using the word "Virii" to mean "more than one computer virus" makes a speaker sound pompous, and is also incorrect.

But simply speaking in a technically precise manner, especially to a science-literate target audience on a techie/geeky website, is not in the least bit pompous.

I would go so far as to call it "expected."

Re:Correct != pompous

[JustOK]

well, duh!

Re:Correct != pompous

[skylinkdave]

Using the word "Virii" to mean "more than one computer virus" makes a speaker sound pompous, and is also incorrect.

Or worse, "boxen" to mean "more than one box." Ugh!

Re:Correct != pompous

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut up you pompous git.

Re:Correct != pompous

[noswalla]

Why would I want to speak in another language when Im in the USA... The name we all are taught from grade school upward, is the star we see each day is our sun...If you want to call it Sol, then u need to go to where that language is spoken... When in Rome do what Romans do.. When in the USA do what we Americans do. Call it sun...end of story...

Re:Correct != pompous

[PMBjornerud]

Our sun's name is "Sol." It is correct to call it by its proper name. The Norwegian word for "sun" is... "sol".

Don't know how it ended up as the official name for the sun, or how many other languages that call it for "sol".

Re:Correct != pompous

[Fjandr]

Frankly, I tend to immediately discount statements that use the term "u" as the product of someone who is uneducated. If you were educated in the slightest in the English language, use it. Showing ignorance while attempting to correct someone who was not incorrect makes you look ... bad ... to say the least.

As for what public schools call the sun in the USA, it has little bearing on the scientific name for that particular body, much like many common names have little in common with their accepted ENGLISH scientific names.

Also, Slashdot is not 100% for people in the USA.

less dense

[192939495969798999]

the larger it gets, the less dense it is, so it may not appear like much when it finally gets eaten by that other star. However, if it has some flammable gases or something cool, we may see a show after all.

Re:less dense

[PhxBlue]

But how exactly are flammable gases supposed to burn in space? :)

Re:less dense

[nwmann]

first of all they were referring to the comet eating the star, not vice versa... and they only said it would appear as such not that it would actually happen.

Re:less dense

[192939495969798999]

assume that the star consumes half sol-sized clouds each of hydrogen and oxygen gas from the comet... that would probably produce some kinda effect, right?

Re:less dense

[Cajun Hell]

But how exactly are flammable gases supposed to burn in space?

By colliding with inflammable gasses!

Re:less dense

[JustCallMeRich]

Would you call that astronopyromania, or pyromaniastronomy?

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[riskeetee]

In other news, a bunch of religious fruitcakes have barricaded themselves in a cave in Russia 'to blow themselves up before end of world.' It's only a matter of time before our comet memories are tainted. Maybe when I restore my memories from backup they can be selectively edited.

You should if you know what doest it means

[Anonymous Coward]

You should if you know what it really means.

From all that I searched on the Internet, comet Holmes is actually also known as Nibiru, Planet X, Dark Star and other names.

I first become aware of this in the Sumerian section of the British Museum in London.

What does it mean then? The Annunaki are returning to earth (known as Ki). The "Gods" (Extra-Terrestrials) that created "Man in Their Image". We have some of them (the watchers, the eye in the pyramid, Nelphim, Secret Societies, Bull & skulls, Mansory, etc, etc) that remained here 3,600 Years (the cycle of Nibiru Orbit in our binary solar system).

Inform yourself and find it on the internet, before saying I am crazy. When Nibiru comes closer you fools will feel it close to you via all the things that are comming (Universal Flood, Earthquakes, etc).

NOTE: This is hardcore core content that I don't believe will received much karma, from the typical human moderator. Maybe it will be even removed from Slashdot.

Great name

[schroedinbug]

The Holmes comet coma is bigger than the sun... such a appropriate name.

ObAbeSimpson

[sharkey]

Big deal, I go into comas all the time and...
zzzzzzzzz...
French toast please!

Spur of the moment thought

[mritunjai]

This just crossed my mind -

Why not make a satellite hitch ride on one of these comets to the outer reaches of the solar system. Assuming they go there once every round, even hitching Halley's comet will get us further than Pioneer 1&2 have been in a shorter time, without wasting any precious fuel.

Lesser energy wasted means more energy available to scientific equipments onboard! So they can possibly carry many more equipments and more powerful transmitters.

Or hell, just hitch a ride on one of these for pretty much anywhere in the solar system. No need to wait 7 yrs to reach Saturn. Hitching a ride on one of these could get us there in months. They move *really* fast!

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[edremy]

Umm, how? It's a bit tough to snare things moving at kilometers/second relative to your velocity, even assuming that there is something strong enough to grab on to in a comet. If it's not moving at kps relative, then you don't gain anything anyway- you've expended the energy to fly in formation with it.

You want free energy for spaceflight? There are better ways

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[Orange Crush]

Unfortunately, scientists have encountered significant difficulties in convincing comets to enter a convenient orbit around the Earth and accelerating back to the oort cloud by their own means.

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[mdobossy]

A guy I knew was a cyclist. He had a similar thought but with semi-trucks on a freeway.

It didn't work out too well.

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[bikin]

Maybe because to intercept them in a controlled manner (controlled meaning the probe is not reduced to pulp), we need to match the speed of the comet. If we manage to match the comet speed we don't need a complicated rendezvous: just shoot that probe in the same direction as the comet and let Newtonian Dynamics do the rest. We can even speed things up by a slingshot maneuver stealing some angular speed from Venus or the Sun (and no, for Trekkies, we won't travel back in time)

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[inviolet]

Why not make a satellite hitch ride on one of these comets to the outer reaches of the solar system. Assuming they go there once every round, even hitching Halley's comet will get us further than Pioneer 1&2 have been in a shorter time, without wasting any precious fuel.

To hitch a ride on a passing comet, you can do one of two things:

1. Match velocities, and then land on it. -or-

2. Not match velocities, and then get smashed to bits by it.

Method 2 easily achieves your goal of travelling to the outer reaches of the solar system "without wasting any precious fuel". However, your satellite will no longer be functional, or even identifiable. But other than that, yeah, it's a great idea. :)

(Tell me Mrs. Lincoln, other than that, how did you enjoy the theatre?)

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[Bearpaw]

A guy I knew was a cyclist. He had a similar thought but with semi-trucks on a freeway.

It didn't work out too well.

He must not have done it right. I knew someone who made it work really well.

Once.

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[jamstar7]

You still have to match speeds with it, not an easy thing with current technology. Have you done the math on a probe just parked in front of a comet for what the impact energy will be like? Let me give you a hint, it's 1/2mv(squared). Get a big enough probe for the comet to smack into, and you can split it in half. Course, you won't be able to use the probe for much anymore...

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[jqpublic]

But since these bodies must have some rotation, which may even be chaotic, it is possible your craft could land on a portion that never (or not regularly at least) is visible from Earth. Thus you could not send
back all these fabulous scientific data you are acquiring.

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[sholden]

Of course if you do 1, then you don't need the comet. You've already put yourself in the same orbit - might as well do that in an orbit which isn't full of comet debris.

If you do 2, then as you say see Deep Impact for what happens (the NASA mission not the movie, obviously).

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[Loke the Dog]

Well, to be honest, there IS a third option, though it requires a really massive comet to have any measurable effect: Gravitational slingshot. Not at all as effective as just using planets, but I suppose if we ever wanted to send a probe to the north or south of our planetary system, this could be an option.

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't be overly critical because I suppose this sort of thing isn't intuitive, but your plan won't work and ordinary orbital mechanics is at fault here.

The main reason is because in order to land on a body you have to match velocities with it. You've already used just as much energy as if you went on your own. If you've matched velocities with it, you're already on the same trajectory and don't actually need to land on it. Doing so would first of all limit your manuevarability (being attached to a billion ton object) and view (said billion ton object blocking half of it), and secondly mean you operate on the comet's schedule and going to the comet's destination, not your own. It's worth it if you want to study the comet, but not if you have some deep space objective in mind. Very few comets make close passes by Pluto, for example.

Another reason is because, in fact, they don't move that fast. Halley's comet has a 76 year period and swings out just barely past Pluto, but seldom (if ever, I haven't taken a close look at the orbits) comes within a hundred million miles. In contrast, NASA's New Horizon's probe to Pluto will get there nine years after launch in 2015. It also will pass less than 10,000 miles from Pluto, taking some amazingly detailed pictures.

Just one more reason is comets are terrible observing environments. That glowing cloud of dust that makes them fun to see from earth obscures detailed observations and is one of the reasons that we have so much trouble studying comets. Their own warmth from solar heating can also interfere with precise infrared observations, and tumble in their orbits, making it hard to point an instrument reliably.

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a total layman, so forgive me if this sounds ridiculous, but could you not fashion some kind of large net (around 2X the comet's circumference should do it), with your satellite attached to one corner of it. Position the net in the path of the comet such that it passes into the dead centre and then the satellite will be pulled along behind but have escaped the impact itself. Even if the comet eats through the net after a few minutes the satellite will already be moving at the same speed and you could at that point use a small amount of thrust to escape the comet's tail and presumably get better pictures/signal.

Re:Spur of the moment thought

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like attaching a net to a lawn chair, sitting in the lawn chair, and attempting to catch a supersonic cannon ball with the net. Only the comet is a hell of a lot faster than the speeds we're accustomed to as supersonic. Think about speeds on the order of 20,000 mph or 30,000 kph. Now build a net that would work, and a probe that could survive the whiplash.

Sir Mix-A-Lot, KCVO

[Anonymous Coward]

I like big butts. Also, I cannot lie.

Re:Sir Mix-A-Lot, KCVO

[AgentSmith]

and as a brother I cannot deny.

Re:Sir Mix-A-Lot, KCVO

[glittalogik]

A few feet from your face, there is a Slashdot article about a round thing. Are you getting sprung?

Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

d!=2r?

John Holmes Comet Grows Bigger

[Fear the Clam]

The Holmes comet has a huge coma

And it's headed straight for your black hole, bay-bee.

Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[GrayCalx]

noting that there is now an object in our solar system bigger than Sol.

I'm pretty sure Jupiter's magnetosphere is still the largest object in the solar system.

Diameters (approx.)
Sun : 864,900 miles
Holmes : 869,900 miles
Jupiter's Magnetosphere : 16,000,000 miles

Wiki

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[Tarlus]

I'm pretty sure Jupiter's magnetosphere is still the largest object in the solar system. I wouldn't really call that an object, per se. Of course, I wouldn't really call a coma an object either, though it is at least a cloud-like mass of particles which makes it more of an object than a magnetic field.

But, I'm no scientist, so I digress. I had no clue that Jupiter had that much magnetic influence. How large is the sun's magnetosphere?

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[T-Bone-T]

A magnetosphere doesn't exactly qualify as an object. It can't be preceived by any senses.

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[lahvak]

Maybe that's a bad question, but would would be the size of Sun's magnetosphere?

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[Tarlus]

A fart isn't an object either but it can be perceived by the sense of hearing, smelling, feeling, and if you're unlucky, tasting.

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the size of the Sun's magnetosphere is measured in AU, I don't think so.

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[MightyYar]

tasting. I just got an idea for a website.

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the helipause? Out beyond the orbits of Pluto and Neptune.

Wikipedia:Heliopause

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[MacDork]

I'm pretty sure Jupiter's magnetosphere is still the largest object in the solar system.

Puny solar system! ;-)

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[Faylone]

Well, I'm not quite sure of the size for the part you're looking for, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere seems to show it at somewhere past 100AU

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[GrayCalx]

Yeah interesting question. I would say that the sun's magnetosphere would BE the solar system. If that makes sense... but what do I know I've taken zero astronomy classes, I just go by what Discovery tells me, ;)

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[GrayCalx]

Puny solar system! ;-)

Heh, I love those videos. I haven't seen that one before, thanks for the link.

Re:Jupiter's Magnetosphere Still the Largest

[tao_of_biology]

Yeah, except the Sun's magnetic field is way bigger.
I'm not sure of the exact size, but it seems to extend out to Jupiter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Heliospheric-current-sheet.gif

There's precedent for this

[sacrilicious]

With a name like Holmes, what did we all expect?

Got a photo of it last night

[yeremein]

I took a picture of the comet just yesterday. Posted here.

In fact, I have several photos of the comet taken over the past few weeks. They're not all cropped the same, but it's still quite apparent how much the comet is expanding. One of these days I plan to put together a composite photo, fixing the stars in place, and showing not only the expansion of the comet but also its motion relative to the stars.

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[Dunbal]

omygodit'sheadedstraightforus!

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[symes]

Those are some nice photos!

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[corsec67]

Those pictures are very cool.
I see you used a 600mm telescope. I will try to take some pictures with my 500mm mirror lens. Unfortunatly I don't have a motor mount, so I don't know what I will get.

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[Kupek]

Thanks. Those pictures are much more informative than the one in the article.

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[Cally]

Is it naked eye? And if so, roughly whereabouts is it? casual stargazers want to know!

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[yeremein]

It is certainly visible to the naked eye, and looks distinctly not-star-like. It's spectacular in binoculars.

Right now it's in Perseus, quite close to the brightest star. It's in the northeast as dusk falls, below Cassiopeia.

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[pbhj]

Below in which direction? Don't you need to say where you are?

Re:Got a photo of it last night

[Cally]

Thanks! Rained in here tonight, but I'll be out with binoculars if there's a clear night in the next few days. I'm lucky to live under relatively dark skies.

"Meteoric rise"?

[zippthorne]

What failure of comprehension brought about such an ungainly idiom? And why has it become so popular amongst reporters describing everything from celebrity gossip to political intrigue?

Re:"Meteoric rise"?

[h4rm0ny]

Well loathe though I really truly am to defend celebrity reporters, it sadly could be defended. Meteoric need not pertain to meteorites, but also meteors. And a meteor skimming the Earth's atmosphere can rise from the horizon pretty bloody quickly. It is an unfortunate expression, though I think Quantum Leap is worse.

"It's a quantum leap!"
"You mean it's too small to notice?"
"Uh... no."

Holmes better look out

[MarsDefenseMinister]

Leon's catching up. Leon's getting LARGER.

Big

[JohnboyHolmes]

And I though my name sake holes was big!

Coma

[Anonymous Coward]

Coma coma coma coma comet chameleon!

Of course it's bigger than the sun...

[Anonymous Coward]

but don't worry, it is totally to code. Holmes always makes it right.

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[cromar]

Nikes??

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[db32]

What do you mean 'tainted'? That was the best freaking part! How many people would not have known anything about the comet if it wasn't for that little bit of hilarity.

new career option?

[drfireman]

I was awesome at diameters in grade school, but no one ever told me there was a career path for "diameter scientists." This is easily the most exciting thing about this story, which if anything just tells us that it's a slow news day in the solar system.

Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[fyngyrz]

So if it's bigger that Sol, does it look as big as Luna from Terra?

It looks exactly like this.

That's a shot with a 50mm portrait lens - no telescope, no magnification, nothing. The comet is plainly visible as an orb, yes, just as the sun is.

Re:Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[fyngyrz]

I'm quite serious. Read the text I supplied with the image. The "orbs" you refer to are not resolved images of the edges of stars, they are simply burned out areas on the camera's sensor as the atmosphere's lensing moves the stars around over the many seconds of the exposure. Those stars are points of light, no more.

The burnout on many star occurs because stars, in relation to one another, can be literally millions of times different in brightness. Comet Holmes, while large, is not nearly as bright as many of those stars at any one sensor location, hence is does not burn out the imager and you get a considerably more accurate representation of it. Likewise, the dimmest stars still appear as pinpoints because when they are lensed to a random location, one or two passes over a sensor site aren't enough to result in a bright reading - that only happens at the centroid of the focus, essentially right where the star actually is.

Re:Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[fyngyrz]

Also, re your remark about post processing, I did three and only three things:

1) I used levels to push very faint background stars and sensor noise (which is fairly significant at ISO 3200) down towards or into black;

2) I pushed the color saturation up by about double to bring out the colors of the stars.

3) I clipped the portion of the image containing the comet and a few stars out and posted that fragment only, as opposed to the entire 10 megapixel shot.

None of which affected the capture of the comet in any significant manner. It isn't reflecting any particular color, so the change in saturation had no effect. The comet is quite bright, so pushing down the bottom-most brightness levels only served to trim a few pixels at the darkest edges of the comet. It appears just a trifle larger in the original.

Re:Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[BlendieOfIndie]

It looks exactly like this. It looks like Hewlett-Packard numbered every star in the sky.

Re:Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[fyngyrz]

There seems to be quite a bit of interest in this, rapidly closing in on 4,000 views as of 8pm, so I'll just point out a couple of other "bare camera" shots of the night sky; I've been experimenting as to what you can capture with just a camera - no telescope - here are some of the results:

• Andromeda galaxy
• The nebula at Orion's Kneecaps
• Here's something in orbit - I caught it by accident
• Here's the moon, but with a 600mm telephoto, so not quite so bare. Still, no telescope, per se.

And with the right lens, you can go a good distance the other way. this fellow is about 1/20th of an inch across; found him on our aquarium wall. :-)

Re:Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[Mr2cents]

Those are great images! I've also bought a 50mm f/1.8 (Nikon) some time ago, and that was also one of my first thoughts: I could use it to try capture Andromeda. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time nor clear skies yet.

PS: My telescope has 650mm prime focus, so a calling a 600mm telelens "not a telescope" is considered cheating (by me) ;-).

Anyway, thumbs up!

Re:Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[fyngyrz]

Thanks for your kind words.

As for the 600mm, at f/8 and no tracking, it isn't a practical astronomical telescope, that, I can promise. Works for the moon because it's so bright, that's all. :-)

Canon's got an f/1.2 50 mm L lens, but that thing is vewwwwy pricey... methinks f/1.8 will have to do.

Re:Comet P/17 Holmes visibility, naked eye aspect

[Mr2cents]

Oh, if you have too much money, photography is the ideal hobby (astronomy too, btw) :-). Anyway, most of the time I stop my lens at f/2.2 or higher, 1.8 is too fluffy (otherwise, if I focus on the eyes, the nose is out of focus :-) ). Ok, maybe I exagerate a bit..

There is a cheap way to do tracking , it's called a "scotch mount" (google is your friend). I haven't used it, but the images I've seen are very nice.

First we nuked them, now their gas attacks us

[Anonymous Coward]

When DOD detected the object, they had to blow it up on final approach before it got inside Mar's orbit. They had to launch Discovery so it could monitor and control the nukes. The sudden increase in brightness was a result of the explosion and the gas cloud is a result of nuking the incoming probe's matter-antimatter reaction drive. The gas cloud consists of a lot of antimatter and will eventually reach us at which point we will have a really cool Aurora. DOD and MOD still don't know where the probe came from or if it got a message out prior to being nuked.

Here come the zombies!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just that it sounds like the plot for a zombie-movie...

in the Pacific Northwest it's called

[wardk]

that "strange glowing orb in the sky"

where did it come from?

how many?

[Anonymous Coward]

bigger than the sun? how many statues of liberty is that?

Why would it ever stop expanding?

[Tango42]

It's nonsense to talk about how big it's going to get. It's expanding in space - it's going to keep expanding forever (the solar wind might stop it expanding symmetrically, though). It will just get thinner and thinner. The interesting thing is that it's still easily visible, but it will start to dim eventually as it gets too thin to reflect much light. The question is how big it will get while still reflecting enough light for it to be visible to the naked eye (in fact, I think only the middle can be seen without a telescope already), and that should be fairly easy to calculate.

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[bennomatic]

He's referring to the Heaven's Gate deal. Look it up on wikipedia.

Re:Get out your Nikes and brew up a batch of Kool

[cromar]

Hey, thanks. That's pretty fucked up.

"Projected optical diameter"?

[AySz88]

What's wrong with just "I see a ball of stuff and I'm measuring the size of the thing I can see"? That's a perfectly reasonable way to define angular diameter, and projecting this back to the actual position of the comet/Sun gives you an absolute diameter. It's not very useful, other than expressing the real size of the volume from which the photons are reaching one's eyes. But for people just looking up at the sky, they don't really care about other diameters, do they?

bigger than Sol? Sol Rosen? My accountant?

[Anonymous Coward]

what does he have do do with this?

Oh noes

[obeythefist]

It's in a coma? Let's get Dr. House on it. It's probably just lupus.

Fixed

[jagdish]

1. Steve Jobs
2. Jesus
3. Chuck Norris
4. Holmes Comet
5. Sun

Because it exploded?

[eh2o]

Its a small object, so the escape velocity is miniscule. Then you have an explosion / eruption or whatever and a bunch of dust spews out at a fairly high velocity. Its also pretty far out so the tail is small and the velocity of the dust remains mostly radial. Is there any reason to think that the cloud would *not* get bigger than the sun eventually? OK, I guess its a benchmark of sorts to compare it to the radius of the sun, but the behavior is basically predicted by Newton's first law of motion...

Yeah but...

[JustCallMeRich]

But this one goes to 11.

Read the FAQ

[benhocking]

Slashdot seems to be very Earth-centric. Do you have any plans to be more galactic in your scope?

Slashdot is Earth-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Earthlings, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is from the Earth. We're certainly not opposed to doing more galactic stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the solar system and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.

Re:Read the FAQ

[JohhnyTHM]

And if you want an interview, please provide transport.

Damn you

[benhocking]

The big fiery ball in the sky is called Sun by [pulling number out of ass] 99.9% of all English speaking humans.

I'll never be able to use that number again. From now on I'll have to say 0.1% less than 100% or something like that...

Really, what possessed you to store it up there in the first place?!?

Re:Damn you

[Belial6]

Hey, its a new millinium! Don't judge!!!

See, this is what ruins it for everybody.

[Fantastic Lad]

It's partly because of guys like you that regular people who work up the courage to explore outside the orthodox system are labeled 'crack pot'.

Good work. You couldn't have done a better job of counter intelligence than had you been doped up and paid off by the CIA. --It's not that your ideas are entirely nuts, (though I'd be highly suspicious of them given your inability to recognize that you are acting like a tool), --but that you present them in such a bi-polar, chaotic manner as to not just invalidate yourself, but to invalidate the ideas.

And what better way to suppress knowledge than to litter it with druggies who give people the impression that the ideas themselves cause of some kind of mental illness which render the infected party with a crazy beard with chicken bones stuck in it?

Pull it together man, otherwise you're just barking at the darkness all by yourself.

-FL

Comet Bigger Than The Luna Too!

[AnthonyArrigo]

Comet Holmes is also bigger than the moon as well. I took a pair of images the other night. One of the comet and the other of the moon. I then stitched them together using GIMP. As you can easily see, this comet has become huge. http://www.adventuresinastrophotography.com/2007/11/19/comet-holmes-bigger-than-the-moon/ This is an object that can be seen with the unaided eye. It looks pretty nice in binoculars and amazing in a telescope. Here's a link to a skymap that should work for the next few nights... http://spaceweather.com/images2007/15nov07/skymap_north_holmes.gif Anthony