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

[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.

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: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

[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: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).