[meteorite-list] Fw: Comet 17P (Holmes) Visible Event !

[Chris Peterson]

It certainly is remarkable. Fascinating to speculate on just what 
occurred to throw off what must be a vast amount of material.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "mexicodoug" <mexicodoug at aol.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Comet 17P (Holmes) Visible Event !


> Sure, and my questions were rhetorical more than anything else (not to 
> compare to Halley's Comet's size, or anything like that - they are 
> miracle specific).  What would the wise kings in Biblical times have 
> made of this? (rhetorical)
>
> However, coma aside, a (now) 500,000 times increase in a few short 
> hours is quite remarkable by any standard - especially for something 
> so far away, and what has gone into this.  This is not your typical 
> comet event as you know and is completely exploding off any graph for 
> how magnitudes of comets normally evolve - that is at the heart.
>
> This event will go down as one of the most spectacular, if not the 
> most spectacular, of its kind ever observed.  If not for the prior 
> much lesser outburst recorded for this comet, I would be more inclined 
> to think it was an impact, than anything else.  This is a comet that 
> at closest approach to the Sun only makes a Vesta (Main belt asteroid, 
> maximum concentration zone) distance.  It virtually appeared out of 
> nowhere into not only the eyepiece, but also the naked eye at 2.4+ AU. 
> Nonetheless, your point about the coma is well accepted.
>
> I am blown away by rate at which it happened as the comet was already 
> very well far on its way out. and after all, it is traveling at 2.2 
> Km/s.
> Best wishes,
> Doug