It certainly is remarkable. Fascinating to speculate on just what
occurred to throw off what must be a vast amount of material.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "mexicodoug" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Comet 17P (Holmes) Visible Event !
Sure, and my questions were rhetorical more than anything else (not to
compare to Halley's Comet's size, or anything like that - they are
miracle specific). What would the wise kings in Biblical times have
made of this? (rhetorical)
However, coma aside, a (now) 500,000 times increase in a few short
hours is quite remarkable by any standard - especially for something
so far away, and what has gone into this. This is not your typical
comet event as you know and is completely exploding off any graph for
how magnitudes of comets normally evolve - that is at the heart.
This event will go down as one of the most spectacular, if not the
most spectacular, of its kind ever observed. If not for the prior
much lesser outburst recorded for this comet, I would be more inclined
to think it was an impact, than anything else. This is a comet that
at closest approach to the Sun only makes a Vesta (Main belt asteroid,
maximum concentration zone) distance. It virtually appeared out of
nowhere into not only the eyepiece, but also the naked eye at 2.4+ AU.
Nonetheless, your point about the coma is well accepted.
I am blown away by rate at which it happened as the comet was already
very well far on its way out. and after all, it is traveling at 2.2
Km/s.
Best wishes,
Doug
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