Comet Elenin is a low mass object!

Are there any plans for the glp scope to look at this thing so we can put it to bed once and for all?

Do you subscribe to the electric comet theory?

Have you observed stereo and soho images when comets pass near the sun?

What are your predictions for sun activity when elenin passes directly between the sun and earth?

I think this is more worthy research than mass calculations.

Your mass calculations are in response to the pole shifters I presume.

Certainly. For what it's worth, I can't even observe it right now; nothing but constant cloud cover in the evenings here. It's probably nearly as bad at the observatory. Summer is the "off season" for astronomy in florida. My club doesn't even attempt to do public viewings during the summer months. Elenin sets early too, and earlier each night. Soon it will not be observable for some time as it hangs out by the sun in the sky until fall.

At last, nice one Astro

If after November 2011 nothing happens and Elenin passes by with nothing much happening I will agree that I was wrong about you. Until then I'll be skeptical of what you say as I'm not entirely convinced of your motives in all these posts you do.

You see, I wonder why you are so determined to convince us nutjobs that Elenin is nothing - one would figure an astronomer hobbyist like yourself would prefer to hangout with "more rational" folks on the astronomy forums. So why the interest in what we have to say -after all we are just doomer morans right? This is an honest question.

*sigh* ah, well not long till the Elenintard roast anyhow.

DERP!

I don't, but I'd really like to not derail this thread into an EU debate. There are people literally fleeing to the mountains because they think this comet is actually a massive planet or brown dwarf.

On that note, amusingly I found that the asteroid would have flat-out impacted Elenin had the comet been a brown dwarf.

There are other forms of doom you know, some of which are coming along nicely, while some of us are staring at the sky wearing tinfoil nightcaps.

How does a low mass object interfere with earth so that it creates EQs? Even if Elenin is small I still think there's a conspiracy involved. We will see what happens anyway, not long till october. 3 months is it? Then we will see who's telling the truth.

because here he feels clever and all. In a more rational ambience he will be nothing and no one. The Ego searches a place where it feels superior and dominant. That's easy psychology.

Would you please explain what you might know about the "South Pole Telescope", is there really virtue in having a high-end telescope in such a location?

Would something down there be for otherwise inaccessible viewing angles or for clarity of viewing?

We are DOOMED.

I do hang out with more rational people on astronomy forums as well, but believe it or not I get asked questions about these kinds of things in real life. People who know me know I'm deeply into amateur astronomy, so I end up answering questions about everything from planet x to physical pole shifts.

Participating here familiarizes me with the claims so that I can not only debunk them off the top of my head, but explain the details of the claim as well. Often times the person is asking because they're undecided and only recently heard about the claim and may even be confused about it (mixing magnetic pole shift facts with physical pole shift woo, for instance). If I didn't already know what the conspiracy theory was all about I wouldn't be able to properly answer their questions.

As a side benefit, putting these claims to the test like this allows me to practice astronomy in ways I normally wouldn't have bothered to. I find it immensely enjoyable to crunch the numbers in cases like this and see how what seems like only a small interaction would actually produce noticeable perturbations, and then cross reference that back to actual astrometric analysis and see what the situation is in reality. It provides opportunities to see the elegant way in which the solar system continues to function. To use a cliche, I enjoy watching the dance of the planets, this just gives me a reason however silly to actually measure each movement.

Well, that totally explains your stubborn attitude (read: intolerance) then. You are looking at all of this strictly through the eyes of conventional science. In reality, conventional science does a great job at calibrating and aiming telescopes. As for explaining what those telescopes actually view, well, conventional science is worth fuck-all in that arena.

I could understand if you presented your "opinion" as precisely that - an opinion, an alternative view, one of many. Stating it over and over again as FACT, well, that smacks of the same blind arrogance as the rest of modern, conventional science. That same science, by the way, which keeps being proven wrong each day.

One day in the future, perhaps, you will realise how wrong conventional science has been. You will realise how much time you lost following conventional science. Time, which you could have better used to explain all what you see out there. Good luck.

The fact that Astro fights this more than any other thread leads me to believe we ARE on to something.

So A, if you are trying to put this to bed, how about going to another website to convince someone else nothing is going on ok?

Great, thanks.

Fair enough. Well, I hope you are correct and we are making much ado about nothing. And if you are correct, a lot of us will owe you an apology. Thx.

There is virtue in it, but it's not about angles for viewing. Any telescope anywhere in the southern hemisphere has access to the entire southern celestial sphere, and from mid latitudes even the south celestial pole is well above the horizon.

The air in the antarctic is low on water vapor so it provides better transparency for submillimeter/microwave telescopes like the SPT, and the stability of the air is also beneficial. SPT is not an infrared telescope, it's actually akin to a radio telescope, only this one specializes in microwave wavelengths.

Thank you for not respecting my wishes.

that is nice nut

it is written

so shall it be done

Bingo , he is showing his true, colors and convincing no one.

Yeah it's probably difficult to view right now but nasa will attempt to do so with soho and stereo i believe it will start from 31 july till 12 august or so spaceobs is telling us.....

Have to check soho and stereo to see if it's truth....

Anyway here is the claim made by spaceobs about nasa and comet elenin.

[link to spaceobs.org]

For a fact I believe the crop circles and I do not believe the Astrobot.
Crop circles have kept our attention with mayan symbols as well, so they must tell us that Mayans were very serious about their discoveries and therefore 2011/2012 end cycle. You can't say that 2+2=4 and then suddenly 3+5=10, or 20, or a buffalo.

Well, Astronut, we will know if your numbers are correct this fall, maybe even as soon as August 3rd.

However, what bothers me is that maybe Elenin is an elaborate hoax, as someone suggested, and that the earthquakes are man made after all, and Elenin is just an Escape Goat.

Well, I'm telling the truth, so you're clearly making a mistake.

Because there is no way that astronuts maths and analyses are wrong, yeah right.

March, Ask An Astrobiologist says this

Question
So what the deal with comet elenin, there does not seem to be too much credible information. Everyone seems to be freaking out about it, but no one even knows how big it is. Does this comet pose a threat and what is its size and nature? AND I have read about comet Elenin and how some nasa people want to keep it a secret. what are the chances of it coming to earth and what threat does it bring with it, and has this comet got anything to do with 2012 hoax? AND Elinin is only .117 au from earth on mar 11,2011. From march 8 to mar 15, 2011, what are the chances that Elinin either impacts us, or gets close enough to cause a major catastrophy. Please be honest.
I have been receiving many questions about Comet Elenin. Many of them refer to the outrageous lies on some conspiracy theory websites, which are amplified by people who seem to think this comet is highly unusual. It is not unusual, and it is not a threat to Earth. See the Wikipedia article on this comet [ [link to en.wikipedia.org] for more information. C2010 X1 Elenin (to give its full name) is a long-period comet, which takes about 10,000 years to complete one orbit around the Sun. It was discovered with a robotic telescope in New Mexico on 10 December 2010 by Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin. When comets or asteroids are first discovered, their orbits are quite uncertain; usually it takes several months of observations to firmly establish the orbit. Elenin’s perihelion (closest to the Sun) is in early September 2011 at a distance from the Sun of 40-45 million miles. It will be closest to Earth on about 16 October, at a distance of about 21 million miles, which is nearly a hundred times farther than the Moon. The comet never comes close to the Earth, but it is expected to be visible in binoculars during August and October. Part of the Internet chatter concerns its size. Comets are exceedingly small and enveloped in a tenuous cloud of gas and dust, so the only way to be sure of their actual dimensions is to visit with a spacecraft. Half a dozen comets have been the target of spacecraft missions, and all of them (even Comet Halley) are less than 10 km in diameter. There is no reason to think Elenin is any different. This means its mass is less than one billionth the mass of the Earth. Needless to say, we will not be aware of the tiny gravitational pull from Elenin. In spite of these simple facts, some websites (such as godlikeproductions) are making wild claims that Elenin will hit the Earth, or disturb our orbit, or cause tides, or interact with our magnetic field. Such claims are pure fiction. One of the worst examples is a video that someone posted on the NASAbuzzroom website that claims that the magnetic field of the comet will cause a large shift in the rotation axis of the Earth and produce mega-earthquakes on March 15, 2011. It is hard to imagine anyone would take this seriously. Comets don’t have magnetic fields, and magnetic fields can’t change the rotation axis or cause earthquakes no matter how large they are. Adding to the craziness is a claim that this same comet caused the Earth’s axis to shift by 3 degrees in February 2010 and caused the Chile Earthquake. These are simply lies; the comet was far away a year ago, and there was no change whatever in Earth’s rotation axis. The Chile earthquake was a normal slippage in an active fault that has produced many previous earthquakes, including the one witnessed by Charles Darwin in 1835. Please remember that just because someone says he or she is from NASA doesn’t make it true. Many people who post YouTube videos lie about their affiliation. Incidentally, only NASA is allowed to use the NASA logo, the blue circle with the word NASA and a satellite orbiting around it.

David Morrison
Astrobiology Senior Scientist
March 1, 2011

For the last time nasa is not keeping this a secret!

They are planning to view it with soho and stereo how on earth could this be a secret?

Go to spaceobs.org for more info.

Even it's discoverer dismisses elenin to be what the rumours says.

It wen't through the asteroid belt and didn't drag jack so it has no mass infact no known comet ever had any sort of mass.

It's like a few km big the rest the 100000km in diameter is just dust cloud.

The only thing that could happen and i'm carefully saying "could" is the explosion of a small percentage of it's mass just like comet 17p holmes did in 2007.

Which offered a nice spectacle to astronomers around the world since it brightened a lot.

But other than that

If you are so sure about it you are double suspicious. We will just see how true you are in a bout 3 months time which is very little.