Newly Spotted Comet May Shine Among Brightest In History

Reader intellitech points to an article at National Geographic, from which he excerpts: "If astronomers' early predictions hold true, the holidays next year may hold a glowing gift for stargazers—a superbright comet, just discovered streaking near Saturn. Even with powerful telescopes, comet 2012 S1 (ISON) is now just a faint glow in the constellation Cancer. But the ball of ice and rocks might become visible to the naked eye for a few months in late 2013 and early 2014—perhaps outshining the moon, astronomers say. The comet is already remarkably bright, given how far it is from the sun, astronomer Raminder Singh Samra said. What's more, 2012 S1 seems to be following the path of the Great Comet of 1680, considered one of the most spectacular ever seen from Earth."

Comments

More Corona peeze

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> asuperbright comet, just discovered streaking near Saturn

Sweet -- look at the tail on that streaker!

Whats more

[Osgeld]

"What's more, 2012 S1 seems to be following the path of the Great Comet of 1680, considered one of the most spectacular ever seen from Earth."

got a link? no?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Great+comet+of+1680&l=1

jeez, if your going to reference something in an article take 2 seconds to post a link

Re:Whats more

[yotto]

I love clicking on a link that purports to be informative, when I did nothing wrong myself, and be presented with a page that tells me to run javascript.

How about an actual link?

https://www.google.com/search?q=great+comit+of+1680
or even better
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Comet_of_1680

I'll believe it when I see it

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'm old enough to have heard this sort of speculation about Kohoutek as well.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm old enough to have heard this sort of speculation about Kohoutek as well.

That's fair enough, science hasn't changed since 1973. I believe that history will ultimately show that the decline of science started with the break-up of The Doors, though others contend that it was the rise of The Butts Band. Still others mark 1973 as the beginning of the end of civilisation itself, implying that the impact of the break-up of The Doors created tear in the fabric of human social history that was not simply limited to the decline of scientific endeavour.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm old enough to remember Comet Bennett, in the early winter of 1970. I walked to school every morning, keeping my eye fixed on it, much to the irritation of the drivers that I somewhat randomly shared the roads with.
    I had a 4.5" Newtonian back home; but telescopes are not the best means of looking at comets. A decent pair of 7x50 binoculars are much better.
    I'm looking forward to this one. I took some good pix of McNaught, just at sunset, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. This time I might do better.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it

[guttentag]

I'm just old enough to remember seeing Halley's Comet in '86 and telling my parents I'd be too old to remember the first sighting when it came back in 2061.

And I remember the next day at school when the teacher asked if everyone saw the comet, and one person proudly announced that he watched it on TV. That was the first time I said the word "dumbass" in public. I have a terrible feeling that the percentage of kids who tell the class they saw the comet on TV (or "YouTwitFace" -- the future conglomerate of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook) will be much higher the next time around.

Kohoutek

[mbone]

I am also old enough to remember the speculation about Kohoutek.

It is notoriously hard to predict the brightness of "new" comets, as you know nothing about their history.

Re:Kohoutek

[rs79]

I'm old enough to remember suggesting to Halley "hey, try looking over there."

Re:Kohoutek

[enilnomi]

"Yeah. Look," Harvey said, "can you name one newsman who lost his reputation because of Kahoutek?" He nodded at the puzzled look that got. "Right. None. No chance. The public blamed the astronomers for blowing it all out of proportion. Nobody blamed the news people."

"Why should they? You were quoting the astronomers."

"Half the time," Harvey agreed. "But we quoted the ones who said exciting things. Two interviews. One man says Kahoutek is going to be the Big Christmas Comet. Another says, well, it's going to be a comet, but you might not see it without field glasses. Guess which tape gets shown on the six o'clock news?"

--Lucifer's Hammer; Niven & Pournelle, 1977

Obligatory 'End of the World' thread here

[Mister Liberty]

For starters, 2013 minus 2000 equals 13.

Wonder when

[kiriath]

All the nutcases will be busting out the Kool-aid

Re:Religious implications

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind.
"Because the orbits of the two comets are similar doesn’t necessarily mean that the 1680 comet is the same as C/2012 S1 (ISON). It’s more likely a fragment of that comet. The orbital period of the 1680 comet is somewhere around 9,000-10,000 years, so the last time it was near Earth was long before the birth of Christ."

In 1680

[Anonymous Coward]

there was no light pollution. You could actually see the Milky Way and even dim comets would stand out in the night sky.

Now you can barely spot the full moon anywhere outside North Korea.

Re:Religious implications

[maxwell demon]

10 AD is outside the range of dates in which the birth of Jesus could have happened. At that time, Herod was already dead for over a decade.

If you are interested in a good overview on the theories about the star of Bethlehem, I've found this page quite informative.