What is this comet elenin I keep hearing about? Some people on youtube say it is going to be some big event but I havent heard about it. Any one ever heard of anything about Comet Elenin?
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Everyone starting building a "doomsday" myth around this comet. But Comet Elenin is a small comet that is disintegrating and breaking up according to the latest observations:
The keys to its peak visibility were the closeness it would eventually have to the Sun on September 10th (0.48 astronomical unit, about 45 million miles) and to Earth in mid-October (0.23 a.u.). Within the past week the comet's brightness has declined by 50%, dropping a half magnitude between August 19th and 20th, according to Australian observer Michael Mattiazzo. (The comet's current location in western Virgo makes it virtually unobservable from northern latitudes.)...images show Comet Elenin's bright core becoming elongated and diffuse — the telltale signs that its icy nucleus has either broken in two or disintegrated altogether.
The comet will pass perihelion on September 10, 2011 at a distance of 0.48 AU, later encountering the Earth on October 17 at 0.23 AU (if it survives that long).
The keys to its peak visibility were the closeness it would eventually have to the Sun on September 10th (0.48 astronomical unit, about 45 million miles) and to Earth in mid-October (0.23 a.u.). Within the past week the comet's brightness has declined by 50%, dropping a half magnitude between August 19th and 20th, according to Australian observer Michael Mattiazzo. (The comet's current location in western Virgo makes it virtually unobservable from northern latitudes.)...images show Comet Elenin's bright core becoming elongated and diffuse — the telltale signs that its icy nucleus has either broken in two or disintegrated altogether.
The comet will pass perihelion on September 10, 2011 at a distance of 0.48 AU, later encountering the Earth on October 17 at 0.23 AU (if it survives that long).
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Comet Elenin is a small comet discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin last December. It appears to be breaking up as it nears the Sun. It's not a big event, at least to us astronomers. Comet Garradd is much easier to observe.
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The doomsday nuts, disappointed at the non-appearance of their fake planet Nibiru, have inexplicably latched on to Comet Elenin as a replacement doomsday object. However, it's a pretty poor choice. It's not the biggest or brightest comet, nor is it the closest. Its maximum tide-raising force on the Earth will be less than 0.000000000000001 times that of the Moon. Donald Yeomans of NASA describes it as 'wimpy'.
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For some reason, uneducated or gullible people decided to spread some really silly and tedious trash about Elenin.
Its 4 km across (half the size of Mt. Everest).
It will never get any closer than 35 million kilometers (that's over 100 times as far as the moon, or about as close as Venus gets).
It probably won't even be bright enough to see without a telescope.
Its just another comet, nothing more.
Its 4 km across (half the size of Mt. Everest).
It will never get any closer than 35 million kilometers (that's over 100 times as far as the moon, or about as close as Venus gets).
It probably won't even be bright enough to see without a telescope.
Its just another comet, nothing more.