Eruption on comet results in its tail splitting as it brightens by 100x
On July 20, 2023 the Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks suddenly erupted for the first time in almost seven decades, making it a hundred times brighter than normal while splitting its tail in two.
As of July 26, the comet’s coma had grown to around 143,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) across, or more than 7,000 times wider than its nucleus, which has an estimated diameter of around 18.6 miles (30 km), Richard Miles, an astronomer with the British Astronomical Association who studies cryovolcanic comets, told Live Science in an email.
But interestingly, an irregularity in the shape of the expanded coma makes the comet look as though it has sprouted horns. Other experts have also likened the deformed comet to the Millennium Falcon, one of the iconic spaceships from Star Wars, Spaceweather.com reported.
It is believed the tail’s shape is the result of the shape of the comet’s nucleus, which probably had a solid ridge acting as a barrier to material at that point.
The comet, which orbits the Sun every 71 years, will make its closest approach to Earth in the spring of 2024, when it will likely be visible to the naked eye.
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On July 20, 2023 the Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks suddenly erupted for the first time in almost seven decades, making it a hundred times brighter than normal while splitting its tail in two.
As of July 26, the comet’s coma had grown to around 143,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) across, or more than 7,000 times wider than its nucleus, which has an estimated diameter of around 18.6 miles (30 km), Richard Miles, an astronomer with the British Astronomical Association who studies cryovolcanic comets, told Live Science in an email.
But interestingly, an irregularity in the shape of the expanded coma makes the comet look as though it has sprouted horns. Other experts have also likened the deformed comet to the Millennium Falcon, one of the iconic spaceships from Star Wars, Spaceweather.com reported.
It is believed the tail’s shape is the result of the shape of the comet’s nucleus, which probably had a solid ridge acting as a barrier to material at that point.
The comet, which orbits the Sun every 71 years, will make its closest approach to Earth in the spring of 2024, when it will likely be visible to the naked eye.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I remember this one. Carl “Nuclear Winter” Sagan claimed it had appeared in Shang times.
Sagan hadn’t read Kirkwood (yes, THAT Kirkwood) in the late 1800s which traced Pons-Brooks back to a fateful meeting with Neptune in the late AD 991. Yes, AD.
In short, Sagan seems more an inspiration to DeGrasse Tyson and Nye than to anyone doing actual science around here.
Do comets have a short life span compared to other bodies in the solar system? Each orbit cycle it loses some mass, correct?
OT: This Anton guy on YouTube is doing a great job discussing all things Astro.
Here he is saying there was a major event on the moon 33 million years ago ( asteroid strike ) which showered the Earth with moon material, causing an extinction event.
https://youtu.be/UH0WxT6cgTk