Comet Lovejoy: The events of 1811 - 1812 and the Great Comet ....Disasters cometh?

In December, 1811, a series of earthquakes began that rocked over three hundred thousand square miles of eastern North America. The great New Madrid Earthquake was just one of the many events of late 1811 and 1812 that followed quickly on the heels of the Great Comet of 1811. First observed from America in late 1811, the comet was described as bright and slightly smaller than the full moon, including its tail. Newspapers in the young republic picked up on the comet and predicted that it was an omen of evil times. Sure enough, a string of disasters, nature and otherwise followed.

Though the epicenter of the earthquakes was near a small town on the Mississippi River – New Madrid, Missouri – the numerous shocks were felt as far away as New York and Florida. According to one source, Richmond, Virginia and Boston were shaken so violently by the December 16 shocks that church bells rang. It is said that in some places the current in the Mississippi River flowed backward.

The great naturalist John James Audubon was in Kentucky when the first tremor struck. Initially he thought the roar was a tornado and headed for shelter. Audobon and others reported strange darkenings and brightenings in the sky.

Jared Brookes, a native of Louisville, Kentucky kept accurate records of all the shocks that he experienced. Between December, 1811, and May, 1812, he tabulated over two thousand separate tremors. Based on the historical evidence, Charles Richter (inventor of the Richter scale used to measure the strength of earthquakes) had estimated that there were at least three severe shocks that exceeded magnitude eight on his scale. The New Madrid Earthquakes thus stand as one of the most severe, if not the most severe, series of quakes recorded in U.S. history.

The New Madrid Earthquakes were not the only disaster to take place in 1811 and 1812. On December 26, 1811, a fire broke out in the new theater in Richmond, which was packed with people. Governor George Smith and almost eighty others perished. The incidents leading to the War of 1812 were moving inexorably forward: the Battle of Tippecanoe; the Guerriere incident in which the British impressed an American seaman from an American vessel onto their warship Guerriere. To round out the problems, severe weather plagued the young republic. All told, 1812 was not a good year.

COMET LOVEJOY:

This is, without any doubt, the brightest sungrazing comet that SOHO has ever seen," says comet researcher Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC.

The comet's nucleus, thought to be twice as wide as a football field, will skim approximately 140,000 km (1.2 solar radii) above the solar surface on Dec. 15/16. At such close range, solar heating will almost certainly destroy the comet's icy core, creating a cloud of vapor and comet dust that will reflect lots of sunlight

[link to www.spaceweather.com]