Thursday, December 8, 2011

Comet fly-in, fly-by, and maybe break-up

In case you haven't heard, next week (just after the total lunar eclipse that I am not longitudinally privileged to witness) a sungrazing comet is going to graze the Sun.  According to the following article, we can watch the SOHO observations as-it-happens:

Sun-grazing Comet Lovejoy flies by the Sun

I was really impressed in this article when they said that at top speed, these sungrazing comets are moving at more than a million miles per hour.

This picture is of Ikeya-Seki, mentioned in the article.  Comet Lovejoy is not expected to be this bright;  but we can hope.


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