re. belching
If it's methane then it's probably farting.
Comet ISON, the keenly awaited "comet of the century" candidate, is already blasting out huge amounts of gas and dust despite being half a billion kilometres away from the Sun, according to the latest images from NASA's Spitzer space telescope. Spitzer pics of comet ISON 500m km from the Sun The space rock is due to pass …
To be fair to the author, the dirty snowball was the official name of Fred Whipple's hypothesis that comets were essentially single lumps of ice with a bit of dirt rather a collection of smaller rocky bodies containing a little ice (the flying gravel bank). It was only really confirmed when Giotto took a good hard look at Comet Halley.
Nearly certainly NOT hyperbolic, but a very elongated ellipse from an Oort cloud. You have a lot more than three bodies in the Oort cloud, where it will be traveling with lowest velocity. Indeed, it could be the first time that this object lost enough energy to take a very eccentric ellipse right by the sun, rather than a more circular ellipse out at the Oort cloud. A hyperbolic orbit is interstellar.
It's a combination of light pressure and solar wind acting on the various stuff evaporating from the comet. The small gas and dust particles are affected more than the main body of the comet so start lagging behind.
When a comet picks up a large sideways component to its velocity you quite often get multiple tails as different size gas molecules and dust particles are sorted by the acceleration they pick up from the light.
"The space rock is due to pass through our solar system later this year, when boffins hope it will survive a close pass with the Sun without breaking up, providing a spectacular display in Earth's skies in November and December that could outshine the Moon. However, it could also prove to be a damp squib if the Sun roasts it into pieces before then."
I am pretty sure that if it is 500 Million Kilometres from the sun, it is already passing through our solar system. Earth is 149,600,000 km so, over 1/3 of the distance to the comet. 500 million KM would put it between Jupiter (741 million km) and the Asteroid Belt (404 million km)
Could someone in the know explain the naming to me? It makes no sense: what if the ISON discovers another comet? Will that be ISON2? ISON The Sequel? Return of the ISON?
Don't comets normally get named after their discoverers, as in the actual *people? Hence, shouldn't this be Nevski-Novichonok, just like Levy-Shoemaker or Halley or what-not?
I'm confused that even NASA calls it "comet ISON".
How does the official naming system work?
Nevski and Novichonok did not initially report cometary activity. That was picked up by other observers. With that, the rock was nicknamed after the telescope network used instead. The official name is C/2012 S1. It is based on the periodicity (C: non-periodic), the year of discovery, the half month within the year (S: 1st half of October) and a sequence number.
Nomenclature rules: http://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/#comets
One set of rules for the popular names: http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/cometnameg.html
The trifecta of elitist directed, taxpayer funded Carbon frauds are climate forcing, 'sustainable' energy and 'peak' oil. Carbon climate forcing was all about FORCED Carbon commodity marketing. No sustainable energy produces the energy required for it's own production. Hydrocarbons are natural and occur though out the Universe, as mention above comment has frozen Methane crystals. Earth produces Hydrocarbons as a by-product of fission, see "Fracturing the Fossil Fuel Fable".
'Earth produces Hydrocarbons as a by-product of fission, see "Fracturing the Fossil Fuel Fable".'
What a fascinating thought! So, Hydrocarbons are not made of hydrogen and carbon, but of Mercury and Actinium!
Small hint: Carbon is one of the end states of nucleosynthesis in stars, along with Oxygen and Nitrogen. Stars that go supernova can produce heavier elements, such as Iron and heavier.
The Actinium series decays ultimately to Actinium, which is stable.
The Radium series decays ultimately to Mercury, which is stable.
The Neptunium series decays ultimately to Titanium, which is stable.
The Thorium series decays ultimately to Lead, which is stable.
Note the dearth of hydrogen, which is not a product of fission or carbon, which is also not a product of fission.
This is only physics 101 stuff, taught in high school!