BREAKING: Scientist claims comet ISON has companions!

What a dipshit. He's full of shit. ISON does not have any "companions." I'll tell what happened, he saw this image floating around on conspiracy forums like this one claiming it shows "companions" near comet ISON and he latched onto it:
Thread: Comet C/2012 S1 ISON is being followed
These sorts of images often show asteroids as well as hot pixels, but those asteroids are nowhere near the comet, and the hot pixels are not even real objects at all. I'm betting he didn't even notice the asteroid at the top of the above image:
[link to www.godlikeproductions.com]

Hot pixels don't even form point-spread functions, which is why that dipshit McCanney exclaimed that it "hadn't formed a coma." The lack of a point-spread function means it's not a real object, it's just noise in the imager. Asteroids and other real objects in space such as 2002 TY164 do, however, making them easy to distinguish. Obviously McCanney did not realize that.

If there are severe anomalies on earth this year, the object might be more than a comet.

Its amazing, you don't even have to read one word to realize something is a crackpot site. Just look at the color scheme...

Well, the only way to know this for sure will be when it is closer to Mars, to us...etc Maybe from September we'll have a better data to contrast.

No, we already know this for sure, the astrophotographer himself confirmed it. It's hot pixels, end of story.

Man you always take the fun out of DOOOOOOM! LOL

There is a mistake in all of these posts, folks. Prof. McCanney does not used this images or data for his posting. Actually he alerted about this crackpot information. I don't know why this information got so far out of his statements while going through these sites you put here. Professor McCanney don't post in any other site, just on jmccsci.com, so I guess you should first take a look at this site before calling a honorable scientist a "dipshit".

Oh boy!Elenin thing all over again!!!

This will be one hell of a year!

How big is it?

No, we know of the hot pixels, we can't be 100% sure ISON is alone until it gets closer is what they are saying.

And I agree, there could be things hitching a ride behind ISON.

ISON may also break up into several smaller pieces as it gets closer to the Sun. Noting ISON hasn't been "melted" yet by the Sun as far as we know.

Oh really? You speak for the other poster? He said the only way to know "this" in direct response to what I was talking about. I was talking about the hot pixels in the image.

Let's assume for a moment ISON is a fairly big comet at about 20km diameter for its physical nucleus. Its volume would then be about 4,188,790,200,000 m^3. If we assume a density of about 1500 kg/m^3 (and that's extremely generous, realistically it'd be closer to 400 kg/m^3) then the total mass is about 6.2831853 x 10^15 kg. If an object were orbiting a comet with that mass at any kind of distance, it wouldn't remain in orbit of it. If an object tried to orbit it at the distance that the moon is from earth, for instance, then it would take over 2000 years to complete a single orbit.

It wouldn't even still be orbiting it though, it would have been stripped off by the sun by now. The comet is currently about 5 AUs from the sun. The current difference in gravitational acceleration due to the sun over the distance of the object orbiting the comet would be about 2.25 x 10-10 m/s^2. That may not sound like much, but it's two orders magnitude higher than the acceleration such an object would experience from the comet, which would only be about 2.84 x 10^-12 m/s^2. In other words, even if an object were "trailing" it as close as the moon is from earth, it would have been peeled off by the sun a while ago. At further orbital distances it would have been ripped away sooner still. In order to stably orbit the comet, an object would have to assume a much lower orbit and be virtually indistinguishable from the comet's nucleus.

McCanney has claimed that the comet is being orbited by objects at two lunar distances. That is in direct contradiction to the evidence. The comet would have to be much, much more massive for that to be the case, and that is his claim indeed. He claims it's the size of the earth or larger. He's STILL claiming Pete's image of the comet showed "companions" but now he's now gone to claim that Pete's images were a NASA hoax to bait him into claiming the presence of companions so that they could then debunk it. He's a full-on nutjob.

Things in space don't melt, they sublimate, and the comet is sublimating which is why it has a coma, it's just not all that much yet. Yes it could break up into pieces, and then those pieces would continue along the original orbit of the comet. What does that have to do with anything McCanney claimed?

Last Edited by Astromut on 01/28/2013 10:37 AM

By the way, that nutjob McCanney is claiming that Pete's images were a hoax to bait him into claiming his images showed companions and that this NASA video shows Pete's images without the companions as a way to debunk his claim:
[link to www.youtube.com]
He's lying and hoping people like me don't notice. The hot pixels are still there in the above NASA video. Pete's time lapse is the first segment show, as per McCanney's description, but the hot pixels are still there.

Maybe he made a mistake man, but your rage atacking him suggests you have a kind of personal problems with his work. Both of the videos are not his source of information anyway, and he stated with capital letters that his information is not confirmed and need extensive verification.

Anyway, according to his theoretical work, this is already a planetary size comet. He made predictions in last October that the planet Earth would pass through a several storm conditions, including strong activity in the Sun and strong auroras in Earth in January 15 this year. I guess you knew from news that Earth and the Sun has had very active days from 14 to 15 January, do you agree? According to him, if this is a considerable sized comet, we would see such activities.

This is not coincidence, he did it a lot of times in the past, sometimes one year in advance with a lot of more information than this time. Just give him a chance.

Maybe he made a mistake man, but your rage atacking him suggests you have a kind of personal problems with his work. Both of the videos are not his source of information anyway, and he stated with capital letters that his information is not confirmed and need extensive verification.

Anyway, according to his theoretical work, this is already a planetary size comet. He made predictions in last October that the planet Earth would pass through a several storm conditions, including strong activity in the Sun and strong auroras in Earth in January 15 this year. I guess you knew from news that Earth and the Sun has had very active days from 14 to 15 January, do you agree? According to him, if this is a considerable sized comet, we would see such activities.

This is not coincidence, he did it a lot of times in the past, sometimes one year in advance with a lot of more information than this time. Just give him a chance.

Whatever loser. He was dead wrong and now he's just lying.

Only that? No arguments?

Wow, excuse me for chiming in.......personally, a LOT of fact about space is assumed.

Also, placing the word melted in "" wasn't enough to suggest vague elaboration of describing heat on a chunk of ice?

You may be wise of these topics, but you seem to be ignorant in general discussion ethics.


Let us not forget, the basis for ALL science is observation. Observation should never be silenced in fear of being wrong.


Plus, objects in space can have trailing debris, not orbiting debris, trailing debris.

For all we know, ISON is 3 chunks held together by the very weak forces you speak of.

He is not a professor, does not not hold a
doctoral degree.

Only in USA and Canada, but in the rest of the world the title is gave to anyone who teaches. Professor McCanney is not a doc, but he taught Math for University Level for years in Cornell in Physics and Math departments and to some Universities in Latin America. So he have international career in Academics in University Level so HE IS a Professor.

Voltaic, you don't seem to understand what the claim was. McCanney claimed these were orbiting objects. He still claims it. He claims the comet is that massive. He's wrong, full stop. And now he's lying too. He's not making any observations, pete Lawrence did that, he's making false claims. And don't equivocate with that "more study is needed" bs, that's Judy his way of begging for more hits to his shitty site.

Glauco no he is not. I have a PhD in Physics so I am a Professor of Physics; he only has a terminal MS. He is an Instructor. Professor is a title for someone who holds a PhD or equivalent and is teaching at an accredited University. We went through this crap with the so called nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman too. They are both shameful in that they allow and encourage people to call them Doctor or Professor and never state the truth which is that neither is.

Well this phd washout has now proven he is not an expert at astronomy. He's proven he can't even be trusted to tell the truth.

Dr Astro, what is the problem if Professor decided to talk about data he is yet analysing? Take a look at Professor's page on what he said. He didn't used this video or images to claim that this is a giant comet or to have companions. He have other sources of informations, and other factors plays in place for him to said that this comet MAY have companions.

You're equivocating. The dude lied. Real scientists don't publish their conclusions before they've analyzed their data, and they publish their data. Where is his astrometric data on these companions? He has none, he is irresponsible for making false conclusions.

There seems to be much banter and speculation about this comet from many corridors, and a healthy amount of conjecture. At what point does the reality of it's permitters become visibly concrete? I imagine all the space watchers worldwide would have a consensus were it that enormous and looming.

Man, be more attentive! Read it again and the following posts. He don't published any conclusions regarding if this comet have or not companions because, as he said, he is yet analyzing it. And he *is not* using that Spaceweather.com, ScienceAtNasa or Pete's video. He is a scientist, he must have his own sources. His only conclusion, up to now, is that this is a big comet, nothing else, and for this he is not wrong for sure, due to the secondary effects on this comet that he predicted in last October. So you have to use your imagination here: if this is a big comet, and big things holds other things that orbits it, so the possibility of this big comet to hold companions is not so small.

His only error regarding this issue is that he is wrong when said that the disinfo crew (as he call it), had used two videos for bailing lunatics: one with supposed companions and other one without them, as in reality there was only one. If you had followed him for years and years like I do, you would remember this issue as the only time he made a bad statement. And he talks a lot.

Last Edited by glauco on 01/29/2013 06:02 AM

The only way to measure it directly is by using professional radio telescopes or by measuring the orbit of its companions *if* this comet have them at all. So, as we depend on NASA to do that as they hold all the radio telescopes around the world, we will not see any information as comets "are just dirty snowballs". So space watchers around the world will not help so much if this comet does not have companions.

What I mean is that he is not recognized as a Professor in United States and Canada, but is recognized in any other place in the world. Only in USA or Canada you need to be Doc to be a Professor, and in some cases even this is not necessary.

If you are a PhD in Physicist, why don't you take a look at his papers published at Cornell and available in adswww.harvard.edu? He published space papers starting in 1979 and I'm sure you will like it. He is not recognized by the official space scientist teams around the world only because he contradicts them, but his papers itself are very scientific and has passed through several peer review.