C/2012 S1 (ison) Could Be The Brightest Comet Ever Seen By Mankind

[Steve C]

I'm thinking 'Comet of the Century' must relate to this (21st) one and, to be frank, there's not been a lot of competition.

I just can't get excited yet. I hope it survives and my thoughts prove too negative.

[Kiwi]

Wow......this is quite exciting!!!

I just hope it doesn't prove to be a phantom easterly type disappointment.......and some clear skies would be nice as well

Edited November 28, 2013 by Kiwi

[Coast]

[Dancerwithwings]

12 hours to go,

Speed now 386,400 mph and rapidly increasing.

"Rapidly increasing".....You ain't joking   Its now not far off Half a Million MPH and still increasing.....When will it get to warp speed lol  

 

In all seriousness when it reaches it's peak the experts reckon it will be traveling at 845.000 MPH   http://www.cometison2013.co.uk/perihelion-and-distance/

[Jax]

"Rapidly increasing".....You ain't joking   Its now not far off Half a Million MPH and still increasing.....When will it get to warp speed lol

 

In all seriousness when it reaches it's peak the experts reckon it will be traveling at 845.000 MPH   http://www.cometison2013.co.uk/perihelion-and-distance/

I actually wondered about warp speed and ISON and looked it up yesterday LOL, the definition was warp 1 = light speed, so a way to go yet.

[Gray-Wolf]

 

Getting close now!!!

 

Ready for the 'live flyby'?

 

http://cometison.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Edited November 28, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[Bobby]

Just for fun (or not), if ISON hit Earth at it's current speed (which it couldn't, can only reach such speeds around perihelion)

 

http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=160&distanceUnits=2&diam=2&diameterUnits=2&pdens=1250&pdens_select=1000&vel=160&velocityUnits=2θ=60&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2500

 

At 160 miles away (about the distance from here to London)

 

50 mile wide crater at ground zero

65 mile wide fireball appearing 93 times larger than the Sun from 160 miles away - heat radiation is 804x greater than the Sun

Energy released is around 41 million megatons of TNT, about 1 million times more powerful than the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, over a billion Hiroshima bombs

Magnitude 9.7 earthquake

9 feet of ejected material buries the surface

Winds speeds of 2000mph from blastwave arrives after 13 minutes

 

About 1/3, maybe 1/2  as powerful as the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, ouch.

 

So, the big day.. Comet ISON, to be or not to be, that is the question.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Bobby

[Jax]

Just for fun (or not), if ISON hit Earth at it's current speed (which it couldn't, can only reach such speeds around perihelion)

 

http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=160&distanceUnits=2&diam=2&diameterUnits=2&pdens=1250&pdens_select=1000&vel=160&velocityUnits=2θ=60&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2500

 

At 160 miles away (about the distance from here to London)

 

50 mile wide crater at ground zero

65 mile wide fireball appearing 93 times larger than the Sun from 160 miles away - heat radiation is 804x greater than the Sun

Energy released is around 41 million megatons of TNT, about 1 million times more powerful than the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, over a billion Hiroshima bombs

Magnitude 9.7 earthquake

9 feet of ejected material buries the surface

Winds speeds of 2000mph from blastwave arrives after 13 minutes

 

About 1/3, maybe 1/2  as powerful as the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, ouch.

 

So, the big day.. Comet ISON, to be or not to be, that is the question.

Just reminded me of when Armageddon was on in the cinema, when the fragment hit Paris many jumped up and cheered

[Bobby]

ISON is now visible from the SOHO LASCO C2, this is the one to follow now: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c2/512/

 

[SteveCoops]

ISON is now visible from the SOHO LASCO C2, this is the one to follow now: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c2/512/

 

This doesn't seem to work for me.

 

EDit - oh - Data Outage Announcement 

The realtime LASCO images (JavaScript movies, javagif directories, etc, are currently offline while we restore a server. We apologize for the inconvenience and direct you to the SOHO Website for realtime images and data.

Edited November 28, 2013 by SteveCoops

[Bobby]

This doesn't seem to work for me.

 

EDit - oh - Data Outage Announcement 

The realtime LASCO images (JavaScript movies, javagif directories, etc, are currently offline while we restore a server. We apologize for the inconvenience and direct you to the SOHO Website for realtime images and data.

 

The severs becoming overloaded with all the interest perhaps. Here is the 15:18 image I saved to computer

 

Edited November 28, 2013 by Bobby

[Mesosphere]

This doesn't seem to work for me.

 

EDit - oh - Data Outage Announcement 

The realtime LASCO images (JavaScript movies, javagif directories, etc, are currently offline while we restore a server. We apologize for the inconvenience and direct you to the SOHO Website for realtime images and data.

 

As SOHO is a joint NASA/ESA mission, it has 2 site's with exactly the same data (american and european) 

 

http://soho.esac.esa.int/ - Link to euro one, might get lucky . Seems to work for me atm

 

Edit: seems to be going really slow, suppose this is the 'comet of the century'

Edited November 28, 2013 by Mesosphere

[Bobby]

..

Edited November 28, 2013 by Bobby

[SteveCoops]

As SOHO is a joint NASA/ESA mission, it has 2 site's with exactly the same data (american and european) 

 

http://soho.esac.esa.int/ - Link to euro one, might get lucky . Seems to work for me atm

 

Edit: seems to be going really slow, suppose this is the 'comet of the century'

That works thanks!

[Mesosphere]

That works thanks!

 

No problem

 

Edit: Euro one seems a fair bit behind the US one currently, still got circa 0900 data from the LASCO C2

Edited November 28, 2013 by Mesosphere

[SteveCoops]

No problem

 

Edit: Euro one seems a fair bit behind the US one currently, still got circa 0900 data from the LASCO C2

Probably relates to their outage

[Flipflop]

Thought id try and screen grab Comet ISON traveling at 666.### OMG!! check out the time also...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Methuselah]

^^ The Number of The Beast?

[DAVID SNOW]

Now past 700,000 mph sweaty palm time soon.

[SteveCoops]

Images up to 15:18 now on C2

[Flipflop]

Its hard work trying to get the latest images but thats understandable i guess as every man and his dog hitting the site/s for this event..

 

http://www.solarham.net/ahead.htm    This site refreshes every two mins 16:09 up now..

 

 

Edited November 28, 2013 by Raptor Raw

[Coast]

Tense couple of hours coming up!

 

Good luck ISON! Astronomers hope 'comet of the century' will survive its close encounter with the sun this evening

 

• At 18:35 GMT today astronomers will know if comet ISON has survived its closest approach to the sun
• The comet, which is thought to measure less than a mile (1.6 kilometres) wide, will pass within 1.2 million kilometres of our star
• One scientist from Joderell Bank Observatory it will be 'tough' for the comet to survive the sun's intense heat and huge gravitational pull

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2514897/Will-Comet-Ison-survive-close-encounter-sun-evening.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Edited November 28, 2013 by Coast

[Boro Snow]

16.39 and still she flies 

Edited November 28, 2013 by Boro Snow

[Flipflop]

Will it start to slow down after perihelion if so im going for max speed of    848:738 mph  

[Weather-history]

Will it start to slow down after perihelion if so im going for max speed of    848:738 mph  

Yes