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)."
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.
I got a catholic block.
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!"
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
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!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Clearly named after John Holmes...
So we'll have to revise the list, then?
1. Beatles
2. Jesus
3. Holmes Comet
4. Sun
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
So if it's bigger that Sol, does it look as big as Luna from Terra?
pfft, my pet nibbler's turd weigh as much as that.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
You are so getting laid this weekend!
I thought dead you were, Master Yoda.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
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.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The Holmes comet has a huge coma
And it's headed straight for your black hole, bay-bee.
With a name like Holmes, what did we all expect?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
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.
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.
no - i think it makes you a terraist... (your president W. refers to these people a lot)
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.
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.Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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?!?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?