Comet Lovejoy survives perihelion!

Bahah, that's great

-- In October 1965 comet Ikeya-Seki swooped past the Sun barely 450 thousand kilometers above our star's bubbling, fiery surface. Gas and dust exploded away from the comet's core as fierce solar radiation vaporized the icy nucleus. Most comets wouldn't survive passing as close to the Sun as the Moon is to the Earth, but Ikeya-Seki literally came through with flying colors. When the comet emerged from perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) it was so bright that observers on the street with very clear skies could see it during broad daylight if the Sun was hidden behind a house or even an outstretched hand.

Ikeya-Seki, a.k.a. "The Great Comet of 1965", is a member of the family of comets called Kreutz sungrazers (after the nineteenth-century German astronomer who studied them in some detail). These ill-fated visitors to the inner solar system have been seen to pass less than 50,000 km above the Sun's photosphere. Most never make it past perihelion -- they are completely obliterated. But the few that do, like Ikeya-Seki, can be very bright.


"There are 2 or 3 really bright ones like Ikeya-Seki every century," says Brian Marsden. "Most of these sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a giant comet at least 2000 years ago, perhaps the one that the Greek astronomer Ephorus saw in 372 BC. Ephorus reported that the comet split in two. This can be made to fit with my calculation that Ikeya-Seki and an even better Kreutz sungrazer observed in 1882 split off from each other when their parent revisited the Sun around AD 1100. Splits have occurred again and again, producing the sungrazer family, all still coming from the same direction."

50% rule

much more at [link to science.nasa.gov]

Here's a little video about Lovejoy in the first section. You should see it on Stereo A HI-1 tomorrow.

Comet Ikeya-Seki is a hard act to follow, and it happened one year before I was born so I was not able to witness it.
:(

Pictures of it show it had an extremely long and beautiful tail.

Last Edited by The Opened Scroll on 12/11/2011 03:50 PM

more incoming means our odds of getting hit are SHORTENING

still unlikely, but....

let`s see if a CME just once again "mysteriously" erupts when the comet is heading for perihelion.

In looking now on Stereo A HI-1
There appears what looks like a large comet with a long tail on the left hand side.
TBar, please look and tell if that is Lovejoy.

""visible in daylight""


Wow! Imagine how bright it will be at night!!

Whats that on the left?
[link to stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov]

Watch my video, it shows you where the objects are on Stereo A at time 5:42. Lovejoy will be on the bottom, about a third of the way from the Sun side. Just imagine the image flipped horizontally for Stereo B. What you are seeing on the left in Stereo A is diffraction from Jupiter which is just off screen. You always see a flare like that when a bright object is just off screen. You can see that in this video;

todays Sungrazers update re: HI-1

[...]Tomorrow, Dec 12, some of our questions will be answered when this comet enters the HI-1 fields of view on both STEREO spacecraft. Note, however, that the only realtime data we have for those spacecraft is very low-resolution. I am requesting access to full-resolution data as soon as is physically possible, which looks like late tomorrow or, more likely, sometime on the 13th. I will post those images as soon as I have them, along with a magnitude estimate and my latest thoughts on this fascinating discovery!

[link to sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil]

HI-1 images (bottom of page)

[link to stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov]

Comet should be visible on LASCO C3 early on the 14th

[link to sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov]

Look at this latest image. It looks like a comet headed towards the Sun just above the 0 on 2011. If you load the movie you can see it headed towards the sun. Lovejoy perhaps?
[link to stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov]

It still says as Tbar pointed out
no physical parameters available

Comet Lovejoy to pass the Sun and become a Daylight Comet Next Week
[link to www.theweatherspace.com]

sungrazers update highlights 12/12/11

[link to sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil]

brightness of the comet going literally off-the-scale

Comet Lovejoy entered the STEREO/SECCHI HI-1B field of view

comet is visible in lower left starting at about frame 7

[link to stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov]

visible in lower right starting at about frame 17

[link to stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov]

Last Edited by RTS REDUX on 12/12/2011 12:34 PM

yup..that would be the one

h/t to IwantToBelieve76 via NiNzrez's solar thread for this video



[link to www.youtube.com]

Last Edited by RTS REDUX on 12/12/2011 12:26 PM

This light curve shows (if accurate) that this comet may be brighter than -12!!!

The brightest comet Ikeya-Seki ever got was -10.

[link to cmpdtb.kommet.cz]

Also, if my understanding is right, since the comet will literally go "up and down" the sun during perihelion, its tail should be positioned on top (and pointing away from) the sun like a raised sword, slightly tilted by the tilt of earth's axis?



Last Edited by The Opened Scroll on 12/12/2011 12:39 PM

Sounds like MR2Tuff may be right in his analysis that this may be the brightest of 2 parts and that Ikey-Seki was part 1.
If it hits the sun what can happen?

My brother suggested that if it hits the Sun, we could see it go dark as the bible predicts in Joel.

[link to sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil]

1745UT: [...]In the animation you see on the right you can clearly see the comet heading diagonally through the images. The vertical bar that moves left-to-right is a saturation line from Mercury, which is cropped out of this sequence.

[link to sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil]

It seems to have a very long and bright tail :)

Looks like a sperm getting ready to fertilize the Su...er..egg

The Philippines will have a good view of the comet as it approaches and reaches perihelion, around 8 am local time, the Sun not being too bright.

[link to s1203.photobucket.com]

Spaceweather says comet will hit the sun and "where it will most likely be destroyed in a spectacular light show on Dec. 15/16."

SIGNIFICANT COMET PLUNGES TOWARD THE SUN: A comet nearly as wide as two football fields (200m) is plunging toward the sun where it will most likely be destroyed in a spectacular light show on Dec. 15/16. Although Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3) could become as bright as Jupiter or Venus when it "flames out," the glare of the sun will hide the event from human eyes. Solar observatories in space, however, will have a grand view. Yesterday the brightening comet entered the field of view of NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft:

[...]t will soon grow much brighter. "This comet is a true sungrazer, and will skim approximately 140,000 km (1.2 solar radii) above the solar surface on Dec. 15/16," notes Battams. At such close range, solar heating will almost certainly destroy the icy interloper,creating a cloud of vapor and comet dust that will reflect lots of sunlight. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) will have a particularly good view.

more @ [link to spaceweather.com]

it sounds like they don't think it'll be visible

I don't understand why it wouldn't be if it's brighter than Ikeya-Seki

I've been trying to find a Japanese (daytime) picture of that Comet but so far have only seen nightime pics

Ikeya-Seki survived its perihelion and became visible a few days later when its brightness was no longer significantly outshined by the Sun. They don't think comet Lovejoy will survive perihelion.

[link to news.nationalgeographic.com]


"The sun-kissing comet Ikeya-Seki, as it appeared in the dawn sky in 1965."

[link to stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov]

Another shot of Ikeya-Seki.