Calculations show that the celestial visitor could be dazzlingly bright in
November 2013 and be easily visible in broad daylight as it rounds the Sun. Comet ISON is so named because it was first spotted on photos taken by Vitali
Nevski and Artyom Novichonok from Russia using the International Scientific
Optical Network telescope...
That makes it a type of comet called a sungrazer, and there is a risk that the
comet - essentially a giant ball of rock and ice, will break up when it
makes that close approach.
But it could become brighter than the greatest comet of the last century,
Comet Ikeya-Seki, which excited astronomers in 1965...
Comet ISON, which has the official label C/2012 S1, appears to be on a nearly
parabolic orbit which leads scientists to believe that it is making its
first trip through the Solar System. This means it may have been dislodged
from a vast reservoir of icy debris surrounding the Sun far beyond the
planets, called the Oort Cloud. It is a giant ball of rock and ice that is likely to be packed with volatiles
including water ice that will erupt as brilliant jets of gas and dust when
it is at its best.
The article at
The Telegraph indicates that this comet should be "
fifteen times brighter than the moon."
I've been looking forward to this but a couple of notes:
ReplyDelete* because it's going to be so close to the Sun at it's brightest, it will only be that bright either very close to dawn or sunset. Unfortunately it won't be hanging high in the night sky to be easily seen like comet Hale-bopp.
Although it will be brighter than the moon, it will only be the comets core that will be that bright, so the bright bit will only appear as a point in the sky, so it won't be like a 2nd moon lightning up the night sky.
But I'm hoping the brightness of the core of the comet won't be the most visible feature.
There's a reasonable chance that this is the first time this comet will have entered the solar system which would mean that it would be rather light - i.e. made up of water, gas and dust, rather than metal and rock.
The comet is going to pass really quite close to the sun and so like the comet grazer comet earlier this year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2011_W3_(Lovejoy) could produce a large tail as the sun boils away the comets surface.
Unfortunately that would require a trip to the northern hemisphere to view it after it passes the Sun.
Thank you for that info, Danack. I was kind of wondering how they were defining "brightness."
Delete