back to article Halley's comet is actually ALIEN VISITOR

Halley's comet and other famous objects in our solar system may in fact have formed in orbit around alien suns far off across the vast gulfs of interstellar space, according to new research. Comets, Halley's in particular, are old friends of the human race and their regular appearances in the inner solar system are thought to …

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  1. John Sanders
    Linux

    Wasn't the Oort Cloud...

    Something entirely hypothetical?

    Like the ROI from moving your own standard infrastructure to someone else's proprietary cloud?

    I wonder... The new Horizons spacecraft won't reach Pluto until 2016, and won't be "verifying" the Oort cloud until at leas 2017/18.

    1. Ammaross Danan
      Alien

      Surely

      Surely, the Oort Cloud can be "verified," albeit by much debate and alien-scaremongering, when the Horizons spacecraft gets pulverized by a micro-meteor of "The Oort Cloud" (or so they think...muhahaha)

  2. Doug Glass
    Go

    Yep

    Named after George Halley ... rhymes with Sally. But for the grossly undereducated: please continue to rhyme it with daily,

    1. Mike Flugennock

      Rhymes with "Sally"?

      Well, hell... there goes "Rock Around The Clock", then.

    2. Alan Swartz

      Named after George Halley ... rhymes with Sally.

      Interesting, from Wikipedia...

      Halley is generally pronounced /ˈhæli/, rhyming with valley, or /ˈheɪli/ rhyming with daily,[15] but Edmond Halley himself probably pronounced his name /ˈhɔːli/ Hawley, as in the word "hall".

      Flamsteed Astronomy Society (2006). "Huygens, Halley & Harrison—Anniversaries 2006". Retrieved 19 March 2007.

  3. Winkypop Silver badge
    Flame

    But...

    ...you missed the bit when the FSM spread out all the interstellar rocks like meatballs on a giant plate!

  4. Richard 23
    Paris Hilton

    Paris etc?

    "and matter was routinely passed around among the young and excitable stars"

    ....although "star" may be a bit of an overstatement in Paris's case?

    Another winner from Lewis!!!!

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  6. Steven Jones

    Life on Earth a "very new thing"?

    "But in astronomical terms human intelligence is a very new thing - indeed, so is life on Earth."

    Life ius reckoned to have been around on Earth for an estiamte 3.8bn years (versus about 4.5bn for the age or the Earth itself or about 14bn years for the Universe. So that means life has existed on Earth for a third of the lifetime of the Universe,

    I don't think that makes life on Earth a "very new thing", albeit that such life forms as were present at that time will not have been well equipped to observer comets.

    As for comets being old friends of humanity, I suppose we owe a debt of grattitude to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs at the end fo the Cretaceous in order to provide an opportunity for our mammalian ancestors, but for many in human history comets were seen as the harbingers of disaster and not friends.

    Also, on the basis that other life in the Solar system would still be considered alien, then, surely, so would comets, whether they formed within the gravitational influence of our Sun or not. Best call such comets extra-solar system rather than alien.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That depends on how you look at it

      Multi-cellular life hasn't been around that long, only one billion years or so. And intelligent life, for example, hasn't appeared yet.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Human intelligence

    Isn't that an oxymoron?

    There's a good chance that, in the not to distant future, humans will destroy most life on this planet.

    Knowledge does not equal intelligence.

  8. Mike48US

    Beam me up, Scotty

    Quite right... intelligent life on Earth... ridiculous!

  9. John Tserkezis
    Alien

    I for one...

    ...welcome our new found green furry friends...

  10. mhenriday
    Thumb Up

    Don't short the Sun

    or other stars of its type - it (they) can burn Helium 4 to Carbon 12 via the so-called «Triple-alpha process» and Carbon 12 further to Oxygen 16. But Christopher Webb is half right ; the Carbon, Oxygen, and other heavier elements that we find on Earth and the other planets which accreted out of the proto-planetary disc surrounding the nascent sun presumably were formed in the crucibles of other stars. So we - and the planets on which we live - are all «aliens». Something perhaps worth keeping in mind....

    Henri

  11. max headroom
    WTF?

    Sh*t off a shovel

    /geek on/

    "Our own Sun's population of comets spend most of their time out in the far-flung Oort Cloud, which reaches halfway to the nearest star. Some, like Halley's, make occasional brief plunges into the inner system where we live."

    The nearest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri which is 4.3light years....so so Halley has come half way ie 2.15 light years . It visits us every 76 years so it travels 2.15 LY in 76 years .

    I dd some fag packet calculations and that is 120,000 klms per sec. Now as you can see I am no astrophysicist , mathimatician or speller ....but that sound way way too fast. Halley cant be half way to the nearest start surely.

    /geek off/

    1. ravenviz Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Sh*t off a shovel

      Wikipedia: The Oort cloud is thought to occupy a vast space from somewhere between 2000 and 5000 AU to as far as 50000 AU from the Sun

      Google: 4.3 light years = 271 930.588 Astronomical Units

      So, give or take, Oort cloud could be 20% to the next star. Then Alpha Centauri's could be 20% towards the Sun*. Astronomically that's quite close.

      *or less given the greater mass of the Centauri multiple star system over the Sun

      1. Hugh Jorgen
        WTF?

        Whoa there professor.....

        Ok, slow it down a bit, remember there's no pictures so some of us are struggling to pay attention. Astro babble and geek speak is completely meaningless here.........

        Now, how many football pitches/Wales's????

  12. Eastander
    Flame

    What Made the Asteroid Belt Made Comets?

    Not sure why all these comets have to come from another solar system - or Oort cloud. Surely at some point there must have been a big bang - sorry, explosion - of something where the asteroid belt now sits and this would presumably have sent off rocks in all sorts of directions and orbits that would return them periodically around the sun?

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge
      Alien

      Asteroid belt

      Or something large regularly passing by prevented the rubble in the asteroid belt accreting to planetary size masses by stirring everything up with its gravity....

      Looks at Jupiter....

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