Science

Playinghardball

(11,665 posts) Mon Dec 2, 2013, 06:49 PM Dec 2013

Final update on ISON - it's a no go

Email from the International Astronomical Union:

"...there is no visible nucleus or central condensation; what remains is very diffuse, largely transparent to background stars, and fading; it appears that basically a cloud of dust remains from the nucleus."

Read the full email: http://yhoo.it/1cfJlyP

4 replies

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Highlight:

Final update on ISON - it's a no go (Original Post) Playinghardball Dec 2013 OP

It's still a sweet looking slush ball! tridim Dec 2013 #1

Gravity still requires mass. longship Dec 2013 #2

Just one more incomparable object destroyed under Obama's administration. Glassunion Dec 2013 #3

RIP defacto7 Dec 2013 #4

tridim

(45,358 posts)

1. It's still a sweet looking slush ball!

Reply to Playinghardball (Original post)

Mon Dec 2, 2013, 06:52 PM

Dec 2013

I wonder if it will recombine a bit? Gravity is still in effect.

longship

(40,416 posts)

2. Gravity still requires mass.

Reply to tridim (Reply #1)

Mon Dec 2, 2013, 07:56 PM

Dec 2013

What's left of ISON has little mass compared to what it had. And remember, it was not a big comet to begin with, in spite of the poor reportage that claims it was. It was only about 2 km diameter, less than a mile.

Halley's Comet is a peanut shaped 15 km x 8 km x 8 km.

Hale-Bopp was truly a big comet, about 60 km diameter.

Even the other great comet of 1996, Hyakutake, was fairly small but dwarfed C2013 S1 (ISON) at 4+ km. I saw that one from my porch. Its tail extended across the sky, clearly visible without a scope in my semi-dark rural location. But it never got closer than about 20,000,000 miles of the sun. (0.23 AU).

By comparison, C2013 S1 (ISON) was a peanut. As soon as it was plotted to have a sun grazing perihelion its fate was determined, as many astronomers predicted.

Buh-bye C2013 S1 (ISON). It only had one chance and it was just too small to make it.