Worried About Comet Elenin? FAQs from Ian Musgrave

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Astronomer and blogger Ian Musgrave from South Australia has been active in debunking the misinformation and nonsense that is being disseminated about Comet Elenin. He has written several wonderful posts featuring the actual realities of this long-period lump of dirty ice that has, for some reason, attracted the attention of doomsdayers, 2012ers, and end-of-the-world scaremongers. Earlier this week, Ian’s Elenin posts on his Astroblog were taken down by the web host, as someone filed a claim for alleged violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). “Given that there is no copyrighted material on these pages, with either material generated entirely by me or links to and citation of publicly available material, I believe this was just a frivolous attack on people countering Elenin nonsense” Ian said. Astroblog was not the only site that was targeted, and thankfully, Ian’s web host agreed that the claim was without merit, and the posts are back online. In the interim, however, Universe Today offered to publish Ian’s excellent “Comet Elenin, a FAQ for the Worried” post, and even though the original is now available again, Ian and I decided to still post this on UT so that more people with questions about Comet Elenin would have the chance to have their worries allayed. Have your questions answered below.

Will Comet Elenin Hit Earth?: No, its closest approach is 0.23 AU on Oct 16, 2011, where 1 AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. To put this in perspective, this is only a little closer than the closest approach of Venus to Earth, and roughly 100 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. This distance is from the latest MPEC ephemeris which is based on over 100 observations from multiple observatories that have been continuously tracking the comet, so it won’t change appreciably.

Surely if Elenin Was Going to Hit the Earth NASA/the Government Would Hush it Up? Which government? The Australian Government, the UK Government? The Italian Government? The South African Government? Amateur astronomers world wide are following this comet and continually talking to each other. The have the programs to work out where the comet is going. If the comet was coming anywhere near us, the amateur community would be first to know, and there is no keeping them quite. Consider how wide spread the information is about Apophis, which is a real, if extremely marginal, hazard.

Will it Cause Earthquakes, Abnormally High Tides or Other Disasters: No, Elenin is a mere 3-5 kilometres across and has less than a billionth of the tidal force of the Moon at closest approach (as well as a negligible magnetic field). If the Moon can’t cause the poles to tip, cause massive tidal floods or earthquakes, Comet 2010 X1 Elenin won’t. We’ve been closer to other comets before with no ill effect.

But What About Mensur Omerbashich’s Paper that Says Elenin is Causing Earthquakes? It shows nothing of the sort, earthquakes are no more common during comet alignments than at any other time.

But it’s bigger than Jupiter! No, that’s the coma , the thin haze of gas and dust that surrounds the comet nucleus. The nucleus of C/2010 X1 Elenin is roughly 3-4 Km in diameter and Elenin has a coma around 50,000 km wide at the time of writing (which is a third of the diameter of Jupiter). The average density of the coma is about the same as the density of the atmosphere on the Moon. A coma is a feature of all comets that approach the Sun closely, for example comet 81P Wild (nucleus 4 Km diameter) had a coma of 50,000 Km and 103P Hartley had a coma of 150,000 Km. The Great Comet of 1811 had a nucleus of around 30km in diameter and had a coma nearly as big as the Sun. Comet Halley is 6×15 km and had a coma 100,000 km wide when it last approached Earth. We survived them all (and 103P Hartley came nearly twice as close as Elenin will), and we will survive Elenin without incident.

But I Can See a Picture of it in WikiSky, it’s HUGE! That is the carbon star CW Leonis.

Is Elenin a Moon of a Brown Dwarf Star? No.

But Brown Dwarf Stars are so Cold, you Can’t See Them. No, coldest detected so far is ~370K (about the temperature of a hot cup of tea), the the warmest are around 2200 K, and most range between 500-1000 K. They may not produce much visible light, but they reflect light. Jupiter has a composition similar to those of Brown Dwarf stars. Jupiter’s cloud tops are a chilly 128 K and it reflects light just fine. Any Brown Dwarf in the inner solar system would be painfully obvious.

Will Going Through the Comets Tail Affect Us? No, should the rather small tail of Elenin actually pass over us, it’s doing a pretty good imitation of a vacuum (about 100 atoms per cm3). We have been through bigger and denser comet tails before with no effect whatsoever (especially the Great Comet of 1861).

Why isn’t Comet Elenin in the News? For the same reason that the other 16 comets discovered in 2010 didn’t get in the news, or the 5 comets discovered in 2011. They are all dim. The News is only interested in comets that are spectacular, readily visible to the unaided eye or are being visited by spacecraft. Comet 2009 P1 will be as bright, if not brighter than C/2010 X1 Elenin, but that’s not in the news either. Amateur and professional astronomers are watching comet Elenin and others avidly, but the news channels don’t care about our obsessions with faint fuzzies.

Why Can’t I Find Information of Elenin at the NASA Website? Because NASA is not the arbiter of all things astronomical. You won’t find information on C/2009 P1, C/2011 C1 or any of the faint comets discovered during 2010 and 2011. NASA does have information of comets that its spacecraft have visited, or are interesting in some other way, but it’s not an exhaustive comet site like Cometography or Aerith.

(editor’s note, NASA and JPL’s Near Earth Object Office did publish an article about Comet Elenin in May, 2011, which can be found at this link, confirming it will safely fly past Earth.)

I Saw Comet Elenin Near the Sun in August 2010/Now: In August 2010 only really powerful telescopes could see Elenin. You saw Venus. If you are seeing something bright near the Sun in the morning sky now, it’s Venus.

How Can I Tell What IS in the Sky and Avoid The Venus Confusion? For freeware standalone programs there is Cartes du Ciel and Stellarium (my favourite). For Web based solutions Skyview Cafe, Sky-Map and GoogleEarth (KMZ file here) all work.

Where Can I Find Orbital Elements for Celestia or Stellarium? Here.

Where Can I Find Images of Elenin? Here, and here and a nice image of C/2010 X1 near to NGC 3376 is here.

I have Photographed/ Seen a Photograph of a Double Sun, is this Elenin? It’s lens flare.

Other Good Links:

Leonid Elenin calculates what would happen to planets if a Brown Dwarf was in the inner solar system.

The Sceptics on Elenin.

Astronotes, 10 facts you need to know about Elenin.

Astronomy Beat on Elenin (PDF)

See this original post by Ian Musgrave on Astroblog

159 Replies to “Worried About Comet Elenin? FAQs from Ian Musgrave”

  1. how come you cant find any info about the REAL leonid elenin?
    LEO = the direction/constellation is coming from
    ELE = extiction level event
    NIN = reference to the # 9, which could be the 9th planet in our solar system
    ALSO, heres a question for the “expert”? Whats triggering all the earthquakes,volcanoes etc when it lines up with the sun and earth? ANSWER: comet elenin

    1. LEO is Low Earth Orbit …
      ELE is indeed the acronym for Extinction Level Event …
      NIN is a band …
      ALSO, earthquakes, volcanoes etc are being caused by standard tectonic events in the Earth.

      Thinking is a wonderful thing … more people should try it.

  2. Leonid’s website is here http://spaceobs.org/. He has just discovered another comet P/2011 NO1.

    Elenin is doing nothing to earthquakes, this is covered in the links in the FAQ above.

    1. Here is the reason for the earthquakes during alignments:

      http://eleninandbankers.webs.com

      Why is there such a concerted effort to misinform about Elenin’s dust tail? Typical comet dust tails are 1AU. Elenin’s tail will completely engulf the earth in early October. This will have an impact. Much bigger than anyone can imaging.

      1. Oh man… This one is totally over the top. I can’t believe I just waisted ten minutes of my life at this site. Greedy bankers?? Numerology?Free Masons?

        Stupid Boy, this site satifies all of the fruit loopery requirements I think there is. Really sir. How can you believe that sticking a bunch of ill fitting facts, corporate logos and bad numerology will lead any one to believe this stuff. Oh, and I like the introduction that the material will not likely be online long as the evil conspiracy folks who hold all of the poweer and have been misleading us for (Millennia??) will take it down. Nice.

        Learn some real science. It may not be easy, but it will be a lot more satisfying knowing it is true.

        Oh, and the evidence supporting the giant dust tail? Couldn’t find it. At least nothing that I could atribute to supporting the claim anyways. Maybe you could help us out?

      2. I subscribe to this theory:
        http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf

        Lots of misinformation about “icy dust balls” out there.

        Tails are typically BIG. Largest measured was 320million miles (3.9 AU). The odds of Elenin’s “little” tail reaching the earth is high. What will it’s impact be? Non zero, that is for sure.

        Elenin will be the first comet in history (that we are aware of) to eclipse the sun on the same solar orbital plane as the earth. A tail sweep is highly likely where we are engulfed in it for days on end. Impact? Again, non zero. So what exactly will happen? Nobody wants to say or speculate.

        I do believe there is a hidden power in this world. Whoever put that site up provides a better explanation about the connections than any other whacked out theories I’ve seen to date.

      3. I subscribe to this theory:
        http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf

        Lots of misinformation about “icy dust balls” out there.

        Tails are typically BIG. Largest measured was 320million miles (3.9 AU). The odds of Elenin’s “little” tail reaching the earth is high. What will it’s impact be? Non zero, that is for sure.

        Elenin will be the first comet in history (that we are aware of) to eclipse the sun on the same solar orbital plane as the earth. A tail sweep is highly likely where we are engulfed in it for days on end. Impact? Again, non zero. So what exactly will happen? Nobody wants to say or speculate.

        I do believe there is a hidden power in this world. Whoever put that site up provides a better explanation about the connections than any other whacked out theories I’ve seen to date.

      4. @Stupid Boy,

        …banking criminal elites. Really, wow, words are to little a means of expression for your ideas, try using spirit messages, please!

        Mary

      5. @Stupid Boy,

        …banking criminal elites. Really, wow, words are to little a means of expression for your ideas, try using spirit messages, please!

        Mary

      6. On 1910 May 19, Halley’s Comet passed directly between the Sun and Earth (Ian Ridpath)
        http://www.ianridpath.com/halley/halley12.htm
        http://home.comcast.net/~kpheider/Halley1910.txt

        Comet Halley: Harbinger of Death?
        http://www.unmuseum.org/halleycomet.htm

        “End of the World!”: The Day the Earth Passed Through Halleys’ Comet 24-Million-Mile Tail
        http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/09/1910-the-end-of-the-world.html

        This Week in Science History: Halley’s Comet
        https://science.pfizer.com/content/this-week-in-science-history-halleys-comet/

      7. “‘This has, undoubtedly, been one of the most eagerly-awaited comets in recent years.’ an exact quote from his article found here: http://spaceobs.org/en/2011/07

        Why then if it is so eagerly awaited have we gotten no pics of it from NASA?”

        Why not read Alan Hale’s post in its entirety? Here’s another “exact quote” from your link:

        “Brightness predictions for any potentially bright comet like this one are always problematical. Unfortunately, the news thus far for Comet Elenin is not especially good; it is already running somewhat behind the original expectations, and the distinctly diffuse and uncondensed appearance it is currently exhibiting visually is also not a good sign. Furthermore, calculations now clearly show that Comet Elenin is making its first visit to the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud, and such comets quite often tend to appear relatively bright when far from the sun but under-perform as they approach and pass through perihelion.”

        and

        “With all this in mind, a cautiously optimistic scenario would suggest that Comet Elenin might reach 10th magnitude by early August when it becomes a somewhat difficult object from the northern hemisphere, and may brighten further to around 6th magnitude by the time it passes through perihelion.”

        He goes on to note the May…MAY…MAY become 1-2 magnitudes brighter a day or so around perihelion, where it will still be lost in sunlight for observers (though solar telescopes like SOHO may catch any brief brightening).

        [There is more wrt the upcoming perihelion passage but I will refer you back there instead of taking up even more space here]

        Why not read the WHOLE link before posting next time…[sigh]

  3. wow all the answers where that comet elenin has no efect on the earth? really amazing considaring that any mase at all will have an efect on the earth from space.can you tell me how close did comet elenin get to saturn when the super saturn storm started?

    1. She never said it wouldn’t have any effect; she said it wouldn’t have a SIGNIFICANT, or even a NOTICEABLE effect. An RC car 5 million miles has an effect on the earth; but not a significant one or a noticeable one.

      I’m not sure how close Elenin was; why don’t you find out yourself before assuming it had something to do with it? Though Saturn has a lot of rocks orbiting around it that are much heavier and faster than Elenin. Saturn is massive; over a thousand times larger than earth. Elenin is teeny tiny. It won’t do anything to Saturn, even if it crashed directly into it, it would just be a teeny blip of light.

      1. Why don’t you just take out a calculator and see for yourself.
        Just calculate how many Asian male elephants would require do float in on the top of Saturn to have the same effect as Elenin had at its closest distance to Saturn.

      2. LMFAOOOO i already love this comet EL-ENIN (to add a bit of conspiracy).Lets just say i was comtemplating suicide because i was in lack of a good conspiracy to study.And then there were Elenin and boedom is gone!

    2. Zlatan, I calculate that Comet Elenin and the Earth will experience a gravitational force at closest approach of: 841,723 N

      This is the same force experienced between the earth and a mass of 85,902kg sitting on the earth’s surface.

      In other words, the gravitational effect of Comet Elenin at closest approach will be about the same as the effect of 17 male Asian elephants standing around in a herd.

      I trust that you realize that herds of Asian elephants do not cause earthquakes.

      Calculation performed with this calculator:
      http://www.wsanford.com/~wsanford/calculators/gravity-calculator.html

      Using:
      Mass of earth: 5.976e+24kg
      Mass of Comet Elenin: roughly 2,500,000,000,000 kg (4 cubic kilometers with a dirty snowball density of 0.6g/cm3)
      Mass of a male Asian Elephant: 5000kg
      Distance to Elenin at closest approach: 0.23 AU (34,407,540,000m)
      Distance between a herd of elephants and the earth: roughly 6378km to the earth’s centre of gravity. (average radius radius of the earth)

      1. 20.94 trillion kg = 21e+13 kg.

        In my calculation, with a Elenin mass that it has the same force (acceleration) on you like one 5000 kg Elephant standing 524 km away.

        — Edit, you calculate it to the centre of Earth probably not an unit error.

      2. first i never said anything about earthquakes? but is there a link between earthquakes and elenin?now that you have mentioned it. and if there is a link between them how qualified are you in that field of science to tell me there isn’t?

      3. Well he has a calculator and a modicum of knowledge about physics. I’m guessing that makes him far more qualified than you.

      4. Well he has a calculator and a modicum of knowledge about physics. I’m guessing that makes him far more qualified than you.

      5. You should update your sources.
        Comet Elenin is claimed for anything, Tsunamis, Volcanos, bad weather, solar flares, and bad breath.

        And all you need is just a simple calculator to calculate the effect.
        F=GM1M2/r^2 you know? The hardest part is the square root if you want to calculate r. Something I learned when I was 13.

    3. The gravitational forces caused by Elenin at its closest point is the same as one male person standing at 190 km away. Four people standing 190 away would outperform Elenins gravitational effect 2 times. Now imagine that you are in a football station. Does that cause a worldwide Apocalypse when there is a match going on?

      1. @IM3@L,

        Give him a break, some folks just know things without having to study or learn from OUTSIDE sources, and these folks are to be watched, closely. As long as someone is watching them they will not boil, after all, isn’t it said that a cracked pot never boils?

        For adequately large values of 1, 1+1 can equal 3.

        Mary

      2. whats going on i never said apocalypse,worldwide…..are you guys scared of something thats headed ourway or something…..lol.relax i study too boys and girls so why do you think that your teachers are better than my teachers…like its pretty easy to work out that 1+1=2 i dont need to study just the one science thoy.everyone has the rigth to there opinion i respect yours you should respect others. others

      3. Yeah you’re entitled to your own opinion. But you’re not entitled to your own facts

      4. You don’t understand, the complete gravitational effect on Earth By Elenin is the equivalent of one human standing at 190 km from Earth’s center (66 km if I use . Or Ken Lords mass) at its closest point. Or 144 Male Asian elephants at the surface on Earth.

        Have you noticed any herd of 144 male Asian elephants causing a pole shift or earth quake or tsunami?

        So translated into your opinion, those 144 male Asian elephants cancels out any gravitational effect of Elenin on Earth.

      5. Where is your peer reviewed paper proving that the only effect from a comet is it’s gravitational effect? Or even a paper showing what kind of gravitational effect elenin will have on earth. You just throw out that you know how much effect it will have, yet you show no proof.

      6. @Guest

        The peer reviewed papers specific to comets and the effect you may expect for the various types of categories the comet would be categorized within have been around for more than some little time.

        The recent calculations which indicate 144 Indian or Asian elephants would have the same effect IS the result of such proof; not that you understood any of what the poster intended to convey with his expression of “I did the math and figured what impact…” right to the point of the eventual figues

        Surely the point made by the article and the end links provided by the writer are sufficient for you. If you feel there is a deficit of correct data and that the science folks are all engaged in a worldwide cover-up to prevent panic… well, the simplest way to counter the article is to do your own research, grab a telescope and a pad, use the math we have had for several hundred years to calculate the path, mass, spin, effect on and closest passage to any object it trails by. Please account for the two tails and why you think any of this is currently false to fact as you have stated.

        In other words…

        If you wish to make a claim please provide proof of your claim or retract your statement and allow your claim to drift off into the (setting) sun, as comets are wont to do.

        Mary

      7. You are kidding right?
        It is basic physics. F=G x M1 x M2/r^2
        Or acceleration = F=G x M/r^2

        Do you also require some paper that 1+2 =2?

      8. @Olaf2,

        “…require some paper that 1+2 =2?”

        For very small values of 2 you are correct, however, for very large values of 1 and 2 the answer is 4.

        All this depends on the number system you have setup of course. I usually stick to a more common and mundane system such as decimal when I wish to instruct or educate off the cuff and on the fly, but it is your post so do as you wish.

        Try not to confuse the minds of Guest and others though, please. We are attempting to un-confuse, de-obfuscate and otherwise clear the minds of spidery webs and the junk stuck in that web.

        Mary

      9. @Olaf2,

        Thank you, but I cribbed it from a math PhD, and paraphrased it a bit.

        Adding the number system was an addition as that was a basic assumption in that conversation many years ago.

        Mary

  4. So then answer this: Go to Google Earth and then click on “VIEW” and go to “Explore” and then click on “SKY”. Once you are there, type in these coordinates: 5h 53m 27s, -6 10′ 58 Those are the coordinates for Elenin. Tell me why they have it completely boxed out with black. Why would they have that blacked out so we cannot see it. Obviously there is something that they do not want us to see. So please, explain that to us. We would really like to know.

    1. It’s just an error when mapping was made and a piece was missing.

      http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1292281#Post1292281
      If you scroll down to the bottom of the first post you can download the file which includes an overlay from a different source

      This is what the author of that post has to say:

      “Missing data – There’s actually quite a bit of missing data. With as many pieces of imagery that it takes to cover the whole Sky, there are bound to be little bits here and there that get left out, and I found about a hundred or so. There is no conspiracy to hide anything from anybody, if a piece of the Google Sky imagery is missing, you can find the data in a variety of other sources, SIMBAD is my favorite external source, because it provides access to many, many other sources of astronomical imagery. But it’s also possible that the missing piece is present in Google Sky’s imagery at other wavelengths. In the “Layers”, “Featured Observatories”, you can examine a piece of Sky at InfraRed, Microwave, UV, and X-Ray wavelengths.”

      Still, conspiracy theories are way more fun than the truth I suppose 😀

      For more GE fun and check these out!.

      The Borg:
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile268…ange-image.htm

      More GE glitches:
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile29198/Black-Box.htm
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile289…sing-Image.htm
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile27052/Image-Errror.htm
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile27032/Blue-Patch.htm

      Or wrong placed:
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile269…-alignment.htm
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile272…gned-Image.htm
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile275…s-together.htm

      Just take a look at the directory here:
      http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlcatn12/…Map-Quirks.htm

      As for conspiracies. Don’t forget Hanlon’s Razor!:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor#Cock-up_theory

      1. 81 comments on a wimp of a comet I didn’t know about until this article was posted?!?! I wish another Hale-Bopp appeared and the even brighter Comet McNaught back on early ’07 when I just retired and had my dream travel to Australia and New Zealand. McNaught was awesum!!!!
        This wimpy comet that is starring on this article will miss by a long ways and its mass at closest approch to Earth wouldn’t even be noticed by a gnat!!! IMHO, it will be a non-event!!!!

      2. Still, conspiracy theories are way more fun than the truth I suppose 😀
        ——
        So true. It’s why I’ve been trying to start my own Elenin conspiracy theory, which is that the “comet” is actually a decommissioned Cold War-era Russian deep space probe that achieved sentience somehow and is now attacking us from afar with its Command-and-Conquer-style Tesla coil.

        I think it’s a plausible theory. And the fact that I have no evidence for it is concrete proof that it’s being covered up.

    2. Never mind that the Google Sky imagery comes from SDSS, collected between 2000 and 2008 (or from DSS, waaay before that) but Elenin was only discovered in 2010. Meaning: nobody saw it before. SDSS didn’t see it either because it was too dim. There isn’t a single photon of Elenin you could possibly black out from those images. Case closed. I hope that satisfies all of you, John. (I’m always entertained by that use-plural-to-show-more-authority trick…)

      1. …so what? Go and buy a telescope and a camera, snap a picture of those sooper sekrit coordinates and look at it for yourself. And stop trolling around.

        You know if I were to create a global conspiracy, my VERY FIRST thought would be to cover any alien spaceships, planets of (stupidity) doom, whatever with images of stars, you know, staff that’s all over the place, not with big black boxes. You want your cover-up to blend in, that’s the point of it. People NOTICE big black boxes. People don’t notice a patch of average looking starfield, photoshopped over the damn thing. Get it now?…

      2. Go out and look up with a pair of binoculars. You can’t hide something by just looking up and see for yourself.

    3. Oh for god sake, just take a pair of binoculars and go out at night and look at it yourself with your own eyes.

  5. Boy these ignorant doomsday conspiracy people are the biggest bunch of bigots. The rise of the internet has really highlighted how many people lack the ability to think critically.

    “Believe what you want to believe, then go find (on the internet usually) whatever ‘evidence’ you can to support it” seems to be their motto.

    You’d think that anyone who was really that concerned the end of the world was coming and the evidence was being hidden, would go out and buy a decent amateur telescope, learn some physics and calculate the comet’s trajectory for themselves.

      1. You’re equivocating the common usage of the term theory (meaning “idea” or “guess”) with the scientific meaning.

      2. thats is hard sometimes to spell in english as when you know more then several languages it is hard to just consentrate on the one language like english as it is a mordern language dezianed to spread and confuse histrory and science. but its ok mate i understand that if i can not spell you mite find it amusing as you only now one language.

    1. ….Or get Baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sin! Sincerely.

      1. @MAark57,

        Really, baptized; in a mythic name; for indescribable and nonspecific sins, wow… you are joking I hope, because the Sincerely part has me thinking you are serious, maybe as serious as, err, hell… that’s right, as hell.

        So how does a baptismal action taken NOW prevent the false belief that a comet like this one can do massive harm, please inform me as I wish to see the level of your sin-cerity as it relates to this comment you make to John van Houten’s claim that a telescope and some guidance via learning will confirm the trajectory to be harmless, after the calculations are done properly, of course.

        Doing the sums as it were is a large part of life for folks actually creating material things in life, clerks, sanitation workers, accountants, CEO, CFO, & the like. Do you object to math in general or JUST the math that science must do to verify things like the harmlessness of a comet.

        Mary

    2. @allen gibson,

      None of the things you bring to this are relevant since anyone can use their own eyes to inspect this comet with little trouble save borrowing some sort of telescope and understanding the equations developed 400 yrs ago.

      I do wish you could think about this in a none muddled fashion, clear your brain, prepare for segmentation of your mental knowledge memory block. Engage, now do you see what you say being different from what you think you claim to mean?

      As you said though, people do have to deal with, at present, a lot of crap, an even larger amount now, due to the internet, maybe it [the crap which must be waded through] too is a part of your CT information blackout.

      Mary

  6. I just want to point out that on the image above those sharp bends are not real.
    It is an artefact of Celestia.

    Also on the image above you get the false impression that Elenin gets close to Venus. In reality the trajectory shown is the path it will take through the solar system but the planets will be at different places. The only correct location is where Elenin will be near Earth so you see the planets position for that time.

    Those sharp bends are used as proof that it does change orbit by the nutjobs.

  7. The problem is that Ian and his NASA buddies do not understand the electromagnetic element of comets and therefore underestimate them. There are 6 comets enroute to Earth, disrupted ley lines, and bizarre weather. Only time will tell Ian. I will listen to Mother Nature, thanks…

    1. I had heard the same pile of piss from doomsayers, back in 1994, about Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter, and nothing happened here on Earth!

  8. Didnt know anything about Elenin till this article.
    Just curious; Is it going to be visible to the naked eye from earth ?

    For those more inclined to gaze in wonder at the spectacle. 🙂

    1. I am afraid not, it is not very bright, you probably have to use a pair of binoculars when it is at its closest.

    2. I am afraid not, it is not very bright, you probably have to use a pair of binoculars when it is at its closest.

    1. Dude, you don’t even know how to spell theory, let alone its definition!

      1. @I3M@L,

        Tisk, tisk Ivan, you know perfectly well the-roy is the-dude in descriptor terms used by the anti-cients and the My-ans. He is just saying it ties the room together, really.

        Mary

    2. Making sense does not mean it is true in reality.

      But if you would take basic physics class then you immediately would discover that EU is impossible.

    3. Making sense does not mean it is true in reality.

      But if you would take basic physics class then you immediately would discover that EU is impossible.

  9. Wow there’s so much speculation about this ‘comet’… My theory? I think it’s an orbiting satellite of Nibiru… More or less our ‘Pluto’ … Heralding the grand arrival of Nibiru into our solar system… A planet/spacecraft/planetary vessel/traveling world that’s so huge and so close, when it uncloaks our reality will forever be changed.

    We all could have prevented this you know… Stop slottering animals, stop wars, stop gun production, provide technology without money and greed…

    Elenin is a “wake up call” for humanity. We are not alone, we were never alone, and now our brothers are coming to pay us a visit… But I don’t think they’re going to like what they see, as this planet now has Cancer and tumors all over it!

    Wake up scientists, wake up humanity… The Evil paradigm is coming to an end… The Age of Brotherhood awaits! Those who spread evil to this world have no place in the new world… And I’m NOT a Christian or religious… But this shit is really about to happen.

    Phil Plait will look up into the sky and his heart will probably stop, if he didn’t know this was coming at least. A lot of people will die instantly from the event, some like me will embrace it.

    I’ll say this, IF it happens… Phil Plait and David Morrison are the Anti-Christ of this ’round’ of Terra/Earth… The official ‘fall guys’ for the establishment to lie all the way to the end.

    Wow I can’t wait until September – December. Let’s see if the Mayans and people that channel from Nibiru were right… If so, they are HERE boys and girls!

  10. In looking over these posts it is very clear that many people are terribly confused. We need to resurrect Maimonides from the grave so he can write a modern version of his “Guide for the Perplexed.” I can see that lots of things are confused by a number of people. Some ideas about redshift are here, which has little to do with solar system dynamics. People seem to think comets have special properties which make them unique. However, in the last few years we have had some decent sized asteroids pass within the Earth-moon region. The comet Elena is different from an asteroid in that it has a lot of icy material, instead of being entirely rocky. Gravity is the same for a ton of steel as it is for a ton of ice cream, or a ton of anything else. Beside Elena is passing Earth orbit pretty far away. We will get a comet show, it will pass and so too will all this hoopla.

    Modern people seem to be just as superstitious as people in the past. For some reason comets really get some people paniced. The Hale-Bopp comet (as I remember it was called) got some people panicked, and one group thought it was a Kevorkian mothership and they all committed suicide. All of this worry and pseudo-science over comets is just a modern form of the medieval idea that they were demons, where people would go outside banging on things to chase it away. Hey and it worked! The comet did go away after a while. Clearly people were not entirely clear on the cause and effect issue then, and today it is clear people are equally confused, but just in different ways. It is terribly discouraging to see this.

    LC

    1. Have you heard of Professor James McCanney? You may want to listen to what he has to say about all of this. He states that the Heavens Gate so called cult were not a cult after all, and that they were all murdered. Professor McCanny archives his radio programs back as far as the late ’90’s, I believe, and you should get caught up. Just wanted to share this info with you. I’m not trying to put you down. His website is:
      http://www.jmccsci.com

      1. Professor?? A look on that website shows that this McCanney is a freak telling you crap and trying to sell you canned meat and water filters.

    2. LC: I concur. Where all all these freaks coming from? These types of comments seem to have grown more pervasive since the advent of Disqus. Overall, my opinion of Disqus is favorable, but perhaps some sort of filter is necessary.

      1. Comets have always been bugaboos of the sky. I tend to blame Hollywood for some of this, and in part the last gasp of the SDI program as some asteroid-comet defense system. In the 1990s there was a funny upsurge in worry over this stuff. In particular there was that most absurd movie “Armageddon” which has lots of convoluted ideas about astronomy and was high on Buck Rogers nonsense with Bruce Willis. There was another movie, Big Impact or Deep Impact, that was in one sense more realistic, but was rather juvenile as well. The whole thing starts out with an astronomer finding the asteroid on his computer data file, freaking out and then driving like a madman down the observatory mountain and getting himself killed. I mean, … couldn’t he have sent some emails and made some phone calls? The movie was made in 1998 or so; the age of cyberspace, email, cell phones and the rest was well underway.

        LC

    1. Wow, take it easy, dude… Just wanna point out – AGAIN – your utter failure in this paragraph:
      “Why don’t you tell them how you and Mr. Elenin determine the size of an object? You use the distance you calculate using redshift, then you apply a standard candle. So since your distance is wrong your size is wrong. Tell them the truth and not a politically correct lie.”

      Comets has NOTHING to do with redshift, quasars and standard candles. They aren’t billions of lightyears away, they’re HERE. In the Solar System, millions of kms/miles away not billions of lightyears. They orbit the bloody Sun! You just measure their motion across the sky, and Kepler’s laws will tell you the orbit, and so the distance. It’s just the laws of motion and some geometry. No magic and no redshift.

      See? Your statement is like “I can’t reliably measure the distance to (very far place on Earth), so I can’t reliably measure the size of my desk!” Oh and by the way, your knowledge comes from years of scientific education and research and reading peer-reviewed scientific papers – stuff that many of us here do, actually – and not from cheesy webites on the internet, I presume…

  11. Hold on a minute, who would use redshift to calculate a comet in our solar system? That is crazy!

    How about stupid triangulation to calculate the orbit an distance?
    Unless you are claiming that triangulation is also some conspiracy?

  12. HAHAHA. I want to thank all the crackpots who have commented on this article for all the laughter I have experienced while reading your comments. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed this hard. And I want to thank all the brave people who have attempted to debunk all the nonsense these crackpots have been spewing. Good luck playing whack-a-mole with these nuts.

  13. Wow. I’ve had peak around the web and the forums are clogged with this Nibiru/doomsday comet/coverup stuff. It all makes the cleanup job here comparatively mild. Perhaps we have a natural tendency to be superstitious. I wonder why we as a species seem somewhat susceptible to this? Evolutionary adaptive somehow?

    1. I don’t think it is on the rise – we’ve always had celestial-event hysteria. In 1910 people were buying comet pills because they thought Comet Halley’s tail would poison them. In 1973 Comet Kouhoutek was going to bring about the end of the world. In 1997 Comet Hale-Bopp was carrying alien invaders that were going to end the world. Then in 2003 Nibiru was going to crash into the Earth and kill us all. Now we’ve got Elenin and Nibiru and 2012, and when those all pass without incident, there apocalypse iwill be rescheduled once again.

      The only thing that’s changed is the BS distribution mechanism. Instead of newspapers and radio, we have blogs and YouTube videos.

  14. can anyone give a straight answer on what the density of Elenin is, and it’s comparison to the density of Haley’s comet

    1. Known comets have been estimated to have an average density of 0.6 g/cm^3.

      Small Body Density and Porosity: New Data, New Insights
      Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVII
      D. T. Britt; G. J. Consol-magno SJ; W. J. Merline
      http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/2214.pdf

      We can estimate the mass of Elenin:
      Assuming a radius of 2km and a rubble pile density of 1 g/cm^3, the mass of Elenin is 3.4E+13 kg and Elenin would have an escape velocity of around 1 meter/second (3.6kph or 2.2mph).

    2. there has been a lot of talk about Elenin being a dwarf star and how it has a low mass so it can’t be a dwarf. But – mass and density are two different subjects. everyone jumps on the mass thing and no one addresses the density question. and to throw another wrench in, is it possible for the comet Honda and Elenin to collide when they both cross close to Earth. Honda comes closer to Earth than Elenin. hope everyones math is correct. Can you easy our minds a little more about density and the heavenly bodies of the universe not being on a collision coarse with us. One day something will eventually hit us, hope we are prepared for that day.

  15. All pictures of comet 2020X1 referenced in this article were taken back in march and April 2011. Does anyone know where I can find current pictures.

  16. Maybe this genius can also explain the correlation between alignment and erathquakes. Or is practicing observational science too much to ask of thsi protector of historical science and dogma?

    1. Well, Bill F, it is because of the male Asian Elephants.
      When they move in herds of 144, and they align with another herd of minimal 144 male Asian elephants, then this plate tectonics happens and the poles shift.

      But I am interested in your simple math from observational science. Show us you maths. And I mean “your” simple maths, not some obscure link.

    2. “Maybe this genius can also explain the correlation between alignment and earthquakes”

      Snarky tone aside, there is no correlation between alignments and Earthquakes. The statistical correlation between Earthquakes and lunar aphelion is around 1% This is well within the margin of error in any statistical analysis, see here:

      http://bigthink.com/ideas/31585

      A comet is a mixture of icy rock. It is much, much less massive then the Moon. See comments below for calculated gravitational affects on the Earth. If the Moon has almost zero affect on the Earth’s normal geological processes, a comet would be negligible as well.

      True Pole Shift is a slow process. Geological evidence indicates that the physical north pole shifts very slowly. The cause is likely long term mass distributions. Nothing to worry about here. Refer to:

      Besse, Jean; Courtillot, Vincent (November 2002). “Apparent and true polar wander and the geometry of the geomagnetic field over the last 200 Myr”

    3. If it was true that the “physical north pole has shifted north northwest by roughly 40 miles or so recently or why the Sun apepared this Spring in Greenland two days ahead of time”, do you not think that would be the biggest story in world right now?

  17. I have a couple of big problems with Ian’s attempt to extinguish people’s concerns. 1/ To simply dismiss the correlation or “coincidence” of the Sun-Earth-Elenin Alignments on 27/2/10, 4/9/11 and 11/3/11 with historically significant quakes is a telling ommission, on Ian’s part, and a failure to address the most basic facts of the phenomena.
    2/ The massive heat signature in infrared from google sky from June 2007 comes from NASA’s own JPL coordinates for Elenin on the date in question.
    3/ The Mother of all coincidences, The alleged discoverers name Leonid Elenin happens to codify the upcoming phenomena. (Hint : use google dictionary to look up the meaning of the terms -Leonid -Ele -Nin) Once you’ve done that,have fun picking your jaw up off the flloor!
    4/ Very few people who have become alerted to the possibilty that Elenin is accompanying an object of great magnetic and gravitational influence, are suggesting that this object will collide with the earth. Simply that an object who’s alignment with the sun and earth at distances of 6.1 AU and 2.2 AU ‘coincided with magnitude 8.8 and 9.0 quakes respectively, may trigger even larger seismic events at a distance of 0.37 AU, on or around 26/9/2011.
    Until Ian addresses these central basic issues, his abrupt dismissals of peoples legitimate questions and concerns are meaningless.

    1. The carbon star CW Leonis is located at 09 47 57.406 +13 16 43.56 (Infrared).
      http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=CW+Leo
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CW_Leo

      On 2007-Jun-14 Elenin was at coordinates 09 47 32.10 +13 09 51.2, 14.7AU from the Earth and around magnitude 25. IRAS was launched on January 25, 1983, its mission lasted ten months. IRAS could not have imaged Elenin in 2007.

      You can see the IRAS image of CW Leonis in Wikisky here:
      http://www.wikisky.org/?ra=9.799272778&de=13.27879444000001&zoom=5&img_source=IRAS

  18. I have a couple of big problems with Ian’s attempt to extinguish people’s concerns. 1/ To simply dismiss the correlation or “coincidence” of the Sun-Earth-Elenin Alignments on 27/2/10, 4/9/11 and 11/3/11 with historically significant quakes is a telling ommission, on Ian’s part, and a failure to address the most basic facts of the phenomena.
    2/ The massive heat signature in infrared from google sky from June 2007 comes from NASA’s own JPL coordinates for Elenin on the date in question.
    3/ The Mother of all coincidences, The alleged discoverers name Leonid Elenin happens to codify the upcoming phenomena. (Hint : use google dictionary to look up the meaning of the terms -Leonid -Ele -Nin) Once you’ve done that,have fun picking your jaw up off the flloor!
    4/ Very few people who have become alerted to the possibilty that Elenin is accompanying an object of great magnetic and gravitational influence, are suggesting that this object will collide with the earth. Simply that an object who’s alignment with the sun and earth at distances of 6.1 AU and 2.2 AU ‘coincided with magnitude 8.8 and 9.0 quakes respectively, may trigger even larger seismic events during the next two alignments at a distance of 0.37 AU, on or around 26/9/2011 and 0.53 AU on or around 22/11/2011.
    Until Ian addresses these central basic issues, his abrupt dismissals of peoples legitimate questions and concerns are meaningless.

  19. I have a couple of big problems with Ian’s attempt to extinguish people’s concerns.

    1/ To simply dismiss the correlation or “coincidence” of the Sun-Earth-Elenin Alignments on 27/2/2010, 4/9/2010 and 11/3/2011 with historically significant quakes is a telling ommission, on Ian’s part, and a failure to address the most basic facts of the phenomena.

    2/ The massive heat signature in infrared from google sky from June 2007 comes from NASA’s own JPL coordinates for Elenin on the date in question.

    3/ The Mother of all coincidences, The alleged discoverers name Leonid Elenin happens to codify the upcoming phenomena. (Hint : use google dictionary to look up the meaning of the terms -Leonid -Ele -Nin) Once you’ve done that,have fun picking your jaw up off the flloor!

    4/ Very few people who have become alerted to the possibilty that Elenin is accompanying an object of great magnetic and gravitational influence, are suggesting that this object will collide with the earth. Simply that an object who’s alignment with the sun and earth at distances of 6.1 AU and 2.2 AU “coincided” with magnitude 8.8 and 9.0 quakes respectively, may trigger even larger seismic events during two upcoming Sun-Earth-Elenin alignments at a distance of 0.38 AU, on or around 26/9/2011 and 0.58 AU on or around 22/11/2011.
    Until Ian addresses these central basic issues, his abrupt dismissals of peoples legitimate questions and concerns are meaningless.

    1. After 2012 has come and gone without any major incident on the Earth, and the insignificant Comet Elenin has disappeared back into Oort Cloud, you (and others of your ilk) are gonna look like a right charlie when everyone reads your (multiple) comment here in the year 2013!

  20. @Jason Yeadon and in reply to Micheal Boehm

    Micheal,

    Is it your thoughts that ‘all is as you have suspected for years’ and ‘everyone who is not with you is actively against you’? If so, I have seen that happen to good folks, and they have talked about it when they returned to the sane world. I wish you great success in life by taking the easier road.

    “I have great fear –so all must fear me” is not a way to live, to base your life upon, to think. Memes like this trap all too many in a cycle of unsanity.

    You posit the existence of some massive object and a great conspiratorial gathering, to wit, “…Elenin is accompanying an object of great magnetic and gravitational influence…” and then state “…trigger even larger seismic events during two upcoming Sun-Earth-Elenin alignments…” as if the great large magnetic object was Comet Elenin.

    Which is it please, because surely you are not stating that Comet Elenin is capable of the claimed displays AND that it is in orbit with some unknown but massive object. Oh, and while on that subject, please provide cites for your claims of any (S-E-E-some unknown but massive object) alignment damages, show the math as well please, indicate the mass of that unknown but massive object in standard units for mass and EM spectrum. I await your answer.

    P.S. Assume as a given all other masses for these other known objects. The simple math for this was established several centuries ago, most educated 12th graders could do it if they had paid attention in class. Good luck finding one.

    Jason,

    In regards your actual question/statement/hypothetical:

    1. Please tell us all what would cause any of those conditions to be actual
    2. Draw straight lines to current theory as links in your hypothetical, after all, if you wish to engage in thought experiments it is on you to set the stage and posit the initial conditions
    3. Follow through and indicate some expected result
    4. Present to others for checking

    It is for us to check your math and then carry your thought experiment away if it is sound and play with that one, as well as all the rest, in the sandbox of physics.

    Mary

    1. Regarding funds, has it not occurred to you that the “Electric Universe” proponents are only out to make money from selling books to the likes of you, who obviously don’t have the necessary scientific education to discern real science from pseudo-science?

      1. @Jason Yeadon,

        Last, you mean you are not going to defend the claim you are making, gosh darn it all, I was hoping for something more then the coquettish from you, “come chase me indeed” — you’ll go to your grave with what you learn, and unlearn in life. Take care to treat all knowledge as it deserves, inspect all packages before unsealing, and wear clean under garments like mom said, you know not when disaster will strike.

        You claim that there is some dispute currently in progress twixt the EU and SM folks when in fact there is no dispute currently and for some long time in the past. EU was checked against observations and dismissed, not out of hand but rightly, when it was not able to describe the observations, could not make predictions which could be tested, and in general fell down with the first of MANY enquirers. You know you subscribe to the theory which has the worst track record of ‘modern time’ speculations into the nature of the observed universe.

        Mary

    2. So, Jason, you get federal funding and do not wish to risk losing it, additionally, examining any bus from beneath is not to your liking. I get all that implies.

      I have an idea to help you with that problem.

      Create a different account.

      One which is NOT linked to you via twitter, facebook, or any other identifiable link back to you, your family, your friends, and workplace and THEN show us your math, proofs and whatnot. Simple, no?

      As to your claim of MY branding, that’s a large frying pan which you seem to be jumping around within, take care you avoid that fire, oh, and stop feeding the flames with fatty tissue, flareups happen fast.

      Dirty snowball vs stony aquifer vs mostly metal ores, some do show signs of gases, including waters of various types. Never once have we seen any body smaller than a proto-planet demonstrate any electric activity for any measurable length of time which can not be explained by standard theory. If the universe has a leaning, odd form of expression that, it seems to be ‘leaning’ in a different direction than you claim.

      You might want to recheck your reasoning and sources, and you might want to check yourself for ticks, fleas and spiders as these can reliably be found inhabiting many places which are infrequently visited by folks or those inhabited by shiftless slackers.

      Mary

    1. Attention, people! This is what happens when you take astrology too seriously!

  21. Comet C/2010 X1 (Elenin) is a comet discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin on December 10, 2010. Elenin was using a robotic observatory near Mayhill, New Mexico.

    I Saw Comet Elenin Near the Sun in August 2010/Now: In August 2010 only really powerful telescopes could see Elenin.
    (Universe Today)

    Please explain anomaly!

    1. It was magnitude 21 in August 2010, the magnitude of 21 for August 2010 is calculated from knowing the orbit of Elenin.

      Only the most powerful telescopes could have seen it at mag 21. They didn’t, but the point is that Elenin was so incredibly dim there is no way you could have seen it near the sun.

      By December 2010 when Elenin was discovered, it had brightened to magnitude 19, you still need quite powerful scopes to see it, but it was now within the upper range of high powered amateur instruments.

  22. Comet C/2010 X1 (Elenin) is a comet discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin on December 10, 2010. Elenin was using a robotic observatory near Mayhill, New Mexico.

    I Saw Comet Elenin Near the Sun in August 2010/Now: In August 2010 only really powerful telescopes could see Elenin.
    (Universe Today)

    Please explain an0maly!

  23. Again, if anyone wishes to talk about Earthquakes and comets etc. etc. please feel free. However, backup any extraordinary claims with peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject. If these are not available or there is otherwise no basis for your claims, they will be considered pet theories or pseudo-junk and promptly removed.

    1. Unless of course if those claims agree with yours, then they need no peer reviewed papers, they can just be posted. Only topics with which you disagree need proof. Cite me proof from NASA’s latest treks to comets that show the ‘dirty snowball’ theory is true. Here is one mission that disproved it: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news116.html

      Here is another: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/watchtheskies/skyf-20071030.html
      Let me Quote from the article ‘Periodic comet Holmes (17P/Holmes), a very faint comet far from the sun experienced an outburst and brightened a million times in just a few hours. The comet puffed up (it’s still expanding), changed color and wowed viewers around the world.’ All while moving away from the sun.

      Are NASA links peer reviewed enough for your standards? It looks like the old ‘gravitational pull / dirty snowball’ theory may need some work. Sorry I didn’t add these links to my post you deleted, but I suppose you’ll soon delete this post as well even with the links since it points that we are more of an electric universe and that is something you cannot let the public think about.

    2. Unless of course if those claims agree with yours, then they need no peer reviewed papers, they can just be posted. Only topics with which you disagree need proof. Cite me proof from NASA’s latest treks to comets that show the ‘dirty snowball’ theory is true. Here is one mission that disproved it: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news116.html

      Here is another: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/watchtheskies/skyf-20071030.html
      Let me Quote from the article ‘Periodic comet Holmes (17P/Holmes), a very faint comet far from the sun experienced an outburst and brightened a million times in just a few hours. The comet puffed up (it’s still expanding), changed color and wowed viewers around the world.’ All while moving away from the sun.

      Are NASA links peer reviewed enough for your standards? It looks like the old ‘gravitational pull / dirty snowball’ theory may need some work. Sorry I didn’t add these links to my post you deleted, but I suppose you’ll soon delete this post as well even with the links since it points that we are more of an electric universe and that is something you cannot let the public think about.

      1. KSPepared, your first link – on the Stardust mission – says:

        “Even though we confirmed Comets are ancient bodies with an abundance of ice, some of which formed a few tens of degrees above absolute zero at the edge of the solar system, we now know that comets are really a mix of materials made by conditions of both “fire and ice”. Comet ice formed in cold regions beyond the planet Neptune but the rocks, probably the bulk of any comet’s mass, formed much closer to the Sun in regions hot enough to evaporate bricks.”

        So Stardust taught us something new about the conditions in which the rocky materials of a comet were formed. Nothing magical. Comets still have an abundance of ice. Rocky material is a lot heavier than ice, that’s why the bulk of a comet’s mass is probably rocky. The rocky stuff is the dirt in the snowball.

        Your second link is to a webpage about spotting a comet. An inactive comet’s visibility can increase dramatically when it emits a plume of material when it is rightly exposed to the sun. The comet itself is nearly invisible.

      2. “Here is one mission that disproved it: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/n…”

        This is a link to the Stardust mission. It discusses the possibility that comets were formed under extreme heat in regions close to the sun – instead of in the Kepler belt and beyond. Other interesting trace elements were detected. It does not discuss composition ratios at all.

        For an article with more details on comet composition, see this like on a IR spectrograph analysis:

        http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/84/i29/8429notw1.html

        Or for a more detailed analysis refer to:

        Yeomans, Donald K. (2005). “Comet” .
        . World Book Online Reference Center. World Book.

        Or for the NASA press release lovers out there (out-gassing points to a complex arrangement of ices and gases):

        http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/epoxi/hartley-2.html

        Your second link:
        “Here is another: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/uni…”

        The comet experienced a flare up. This could be caused by several processes. The most obvious of these would be a variable out-gassing rate. For an example of this refer to the observations of Wild 2 in your first link. Other processes could be adding to this, such as the comet out-gassing a more reflective element (carbon for example). In addition, a more reflective rock could be exposed to the observer, comet swelling, visibility due to external factors, or visibility due to the comets orbit/distance from the sun.

        It always make more sense to work the most obvious causes first before assuming the unlikely or the unproven.

        What has any of this have to do with electric currents?

  24. oct 16 wqill be here soon enough what will we fight over after that date ???

  25. Around Nov 22 you can expect a much larger earthquake due to this comet. I’m also concerned about the comet not coming close or a possible hit to us but the debris following the tail of the comet. What I keep running across is how NASA and others are making this out to be a comet when infact there maybe much more mass than expected, being that around Oct 12 this thing can stop as it’s at it’s closest to us and if it has more mass it may be pulled by gravity into us if not I’m worried about the tail end and how much debris is behind it. I’m paying more closer attention. What is really baking my doodle in my noodle I call Minky boodle is this thing will really start to cause change around sept 11th. The morning of Sept 11th I woke up from a nightmare of being in a plane that was headed to a city. I looked out my window and could see just how fast we were going. I knew in the dream I was dreaming because I thought 1st how did I get on this plane. The dream ended as we were taking a nose dive and going extremely fast. I woke right up stood up completely full of swet and said to myself something wrong. Something is very wrong, that wasn’t just a dream. I said to myself, turn on the tv. I turned it on CNN had coverage of the 1st world trade center already on fire. I ran to my bro’s room he was on the phone and I told him what I saw, he said it was probably a small plane I said no this was a large plane you can tell by the hole. He placed the person on hold came into my room and we both witnessed the 2nd plane. We both looked at each other and he said we’re under attack I said we’re at war, at the same time. I tell you this because last night I had a dream I was at a party and suddenly we starting hearing what we thought of as fire works all to go outside and started seeing these small rocks coming at us dropping from space, some burned up others took out houses all around us. Those that ran into houses were killed all around me. I told a small group of my friends to stick with me because the best place to be is outside where you can see these things coming at you. We started just aimlessly walking, running dodging these things. As they started getting more severe my group broke up some went into 1 of the only houses left around us. The grass was on fire, pavement was turning into lava it seamed, houses completely burned away. My friend and her family only stuck with me as I tried to get them somewhere safe but didn’t know where. Then my friend said “OMG BEHIND YOU” This rock the size of a basketball stopped in mid air as it was right in front of me, I said to my friend these things have intel built inside. My friend told me to run, I said no I’m not moving or it will fallow me, I had that feeling it was going to kill me if I ran. I knew I was doomed. I placed my hand out and touched it and I woke up in real life again. Some of these people who are saying this thing Elenin is more massive than people think also say it’s as if it’s intelligent. It’s 1:33 am right now and I can’t sleep after this nightmare. God Bless everyone, to all the 911 victims and armys around the world united who have served faught and died for our peace in the world. Everyone keep your eye on this “comet” “planet x” or “intel terror object” whatever it is, start thinking of your family and a safety plan not just for this coming event but as this world gets crazier by the day.

  26. seanyboo wrote: (later removed by moderation)

    Around Nov 22 you can expect a much larger earthquake due to this comet.

    Can you tell us why this is to happen, what math can you provide please.

    I’m also concerned about the comet not coming close or a possible hit to us but the debris following the tail of the comet. What I keep running across is how NASA and others are making this out to be a comet when infact there maybe much more mass than expected, being that around Oct 12 this thing can stop as it’s at it’s closest to us and if it has more mass it may be pulled by gravity into us if not I’m worried about the tail end and how much debris is behind it. I’m paying more closer attention.

    Debris which follow or trail behind, err, follow and continue to trail behind, they do not really lose speed or gain speed, there are no hidden air pockets in which to “fly”, no hidden nets in which to be caught, if you add all the mass of the gases, dust spalled off over this most recent trip, loose rocks which lie under venting pockets and get nudged out to the debris trail, all of these things making up the comet and its followers, the mass is still less than — nevermind, you do not really wish to know. You are wanting to act scared, scared because you are not thinking about what Comet Elenin is but about a “thing” which is much different from this object and what IT could do to the world.

    What is really baking my doodle in my noodle I call Minky boodle…

    I think I know what bakes your brain, noodles and boodles are not the ingested substance, but real cute images you have there, do the wall breathe for you as well?

    … is this thing will really start to cause change around sept 11th. The morning of Sept 11th I woke up from a nightmare … Then my friend said “OMG BEHIND YOU” This rock the size of a basketball stopped in mid air as it was right in front of me, I said to my friend these things have intel built inside. My friend told me to run, I said no I’m not moving or it will fallow me, I had that feeling it was going to kill me if I ran. I knew I was doomed. I placed my hand out and touched it and I woke up in real life again.

    The dream you relate here is a common one, after watching too many horror flics. The one where your dream starts to morph, change and become another flic, I think that one is a three-parter, has dwarfs and a very hostile environ only reachable from the interior doors of the embalming room. There are lots of floating balls in that one, if you move they chase you.

    Some of these people who are saying this thing Elenin is more massive than people think also say it’s as if it’s intelligent.

    You don’t really want to ‘believe’ the folks who retell a story found in books and film — a flic many have watched, a scenario of invasion, being retold as if it were real, going to happen soon, and all this is VERY sincerely expressed and laid at the feet of some world group conspiring to turn the planet over to the invaders.

    It’s 1:33 am right now and I can’t sleep after this nightmare. … as this world gets crazier by the day.

    The common sentiment of the world becoming a more crazy place, day-by-day, is much like the ‘going to hell in a handbasket’ troupe; both give us hope that the process is too slow to affect us in the next week but do require a little bit of attention in the near future, mañana.

    Drink a glass of water and go back to sleep.

    Mary

    1. “Then my friend said “OMG BEHIND YOU” This rock the size of a basketball stopped in mid air as it was right in front of me, I said to my friend these things have intel built inside.”
      ——
      I hope I’m not the only one whose brain hummed the “bum-bum-pa-bummm” theme when reading this.

  27. I say nothing more other than look at this document immediately. It may be deleted or taken down any moment… Elenin comes first, Nibiru follows… Geographical pole shift potential up to a full 180 degrees at Nibiru’s perigee.

    http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/60725711

    Nothing we can do if this is truth… Game over.

    1. @vasote,

      I took a brief look at the poorly formatted and edited, poorly researched and fact checked, non-paper at the location you indicated above. The work speaks volumes for itself… so I will not attempt to, nor should anyone else, go over the ‘facts’ presented one by one and refute this garbage.

      Your attempt at spreading the word about the immanent destruction of our planet has succeeded in making you look like a fool, to my eyes at least.

      Mary

  28. I’ve got a question!

    Is it possible that, that a second sun (the twin sun) belonging to this galaxy does exist, but isn’t near the sun. And that the comet C/2010 X1, is just circling between those 2 suns, one may be the dwarf, the other one the sun.

    Is it possible to verify the other end of the orbit of that comet?

    Just a question… (Because i found the long orbiting comets interresting, if it returns here and then it leaves, then it should turn somewhere else back to here, it’s because of gravity and speed it makes the turn here, but why shouldn’t it take the turn somewhere else also because of gravity and speed, but not our gravity that from an other sun)

    Please respond,
    Sincerely,

    1. @Jef Jeffersons [my comments inline look like this]

      You say,

      I’ve got a question!

      [Great, questions are always good to see, open minds are the place to be.]

      Is it possible that, that a second sun (the twin sun) belonging to this galaxy does exist, but isn’t near the sun. And that the comet C/2010 X1, is just circling between those 2 suns, one may be the dwarf, the other one the sun.

      [A twin sun belonging to this solar system is what you mean to state?]
      [the existence of a very dim brown dwarf companion star to our sun has been ruled out over many observations. The effect of that mass on our stellar system would reveal both the mass and distance to that brown dwarf via simple Newtonian equations we have have for centuries.]

      Is it possible to verify the other end of the orbit of that comet?

      [We have, that information however indicates no massive object at the other end, for this or any other long term comet we have observed.]

      Just a question… (Because i found the long orbiting comets interresting, if it returns here and then it leaves, then it should turn somewhere else back to here, it’s because of gravity and speed it makes the turn here, but why shouldn’t it take the turn somewhere else also because of gravity and speed, but not our gravity that from an other sun)

      [Answering your question a third time with this group of paragraphs;

      Many long term comets have been seen only once but we know they will return at a point in time in the future. Scientists at that time will have the records we made in this era to identify and recognize those objects from our notes now. This is record keeping, not star science, in the support of discovery. There are many such sub-groupings of science in service to science.

      The turn point of an orbit, like that of the earth’s orbit does not exist, the pseudo-turn or endpoint, and you actually mean apastron or apopsis† here –that point at which the object is furthest from our sun –of a comet’s orbit may change from era to era due to contributions from other planets in our stellar system’s complex dance, just as earth’s orbit is impacted by those dancing planets; it too impacts in some manner those other planets and our sun, albeit slightly since our earth is not very massive.

      This does not indicate any massive, sub-massive or hidden star at the other end of this comet’s orbit however.

      The tugs of planets on the star they orbit is one of the ways we know there are those planets. We see the tugs of massive objects best so there is more of that data at present.

      There may indeed be objects we will see in the future which have a LONG orbit around our star the Sun, and some other star we presently can not image or detect, which is closer to us than the group of stars, the Centauri‡ stellar system, we have deemed to be our closest stellar neighbors. I do not however find the facts to support this view.]

      Mary

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsis
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri

      1. @WaxyMary,

        Thank you for this answer, i meant really a star not belonging to our solar system.

        (It looked like i asked 3 questions, but it was still one question, but i wanted to clarify, frome where the question came.)

        Are there facts to support that view? (Is it worth searching for?)

      2. The Sun and other stars are all moving in different directions relative to each other. Even if there were a small dwarf star one light year away – which would put it within the Oort cloud – a comet orbiting both stars would take tens of thousands of years to get from one to the other. In the intervening time, both stars would have moved, so by the time the comet returns from its journey to the Sun, the dwarf star will be in a different place.

        It *might* be possible for an object to orbit the Sun and a very distant brown dwarf that’s gravitationally attracted to the Sun in some sort of long figure-eight orbit, but not for very long. Each pass around the Sun or the dwarf would either give it a gravity boost or slow it down, depending on its trajectory, and eventually it would either be ejected from the system or be captured by one of the stars in a smaller orbit.

      3. @The Math Skeptic

        Taken in to account that we are now talking over a million years timespan. This seems also logical, it reduces my question to something trivial.

        But thank you for stating it this way. It means for me, more studying to achieve a completer, correcter model. Where i should take in the possibility, that a cycle stops or transforms into some other.

        I only don’t know how it’s possible to eliminate time in the presented equations. Because all our given (calculated) constants are measured in our perception of time. (Even Einsteins constant is time based)

        Does anyone know if there are some existing theories, i should look into which tackles the time question?

      4. @Jef,

        Your request is not clearly stated, please restate your request in terms common to all of science. If you are really asking — since we as humans experience time how can we measure some timeless quanta. The answer is clear, that quanta contains the measure of time as well as the measure of movement if mass is present.

        Can you show us the math please, as your statements do not indicate a grasp of the underlining facts which are determined by the observations and expressed as a theory, or as a hypothetical.

        I sense there is some agenda hidden within your questions, please drag it into the open air, give it full light for examination. Allow de-bunkers to thrash it, find reasons to dismiss it, for therein is the scientific method in truth. It [the tested item] might survive and take the place of some existing pillar, but the process is the key.

        If you do not jump on the merry-go-round then you can never try for the brass ring. Education is what allows us to determine which ride at the fair is the proper one for our present state of attainment.

        Mary

  29. Dear, Uncle_Fred

    It seams that my comment was deleted, it’s nice that you are reading all this.

    Then read this:

    You are deleting stuff with an eye of a typical narrow minded modern scientist. (Which is fine by me)

    But you aren’t deleting the typical debunking stuff, which doesn’t contribute also to this thread!

    Don’t forget, the biggest scientists of the world became famous by thinking, wondering out of the box, in their time frame. Not by stating all, that was stated before.

    You can delete this also, which is the best, but i’am glad you read this.

    Start wondering, start thinking, filosophy is also an accepted science!

    Read the secret doctrine written by Batavsky, it can be an eye opener, if you make it to the end of the book. (Written at the end of the 19th century)

    (Science and practising science altered in history many times, don’t be fooled, by stating that you know everything, you know only what was stated before, you’ve chewed it pretty well.)

    Sincerely,

    1. @Jef Jeffersons again,

      Your post was never deleted, please have patience. The mods may well be requiring all posts to be marked as acceptable before they will be posted to the comments section for all you know. I responded to your ‘lost or deleted’ post just now in fact.

      As to the remainder of your irate posting, please take that tripe somewhere else.

      I answered your first ill formed and badly thought out question posting and this irate post of yours as you seemed to be only slightly under-educated for a middle school graduate but still interested in learning at the undergraduate level. I see now you are not of that ilk but instead are one of the nutters we get from time to time. Begone please, until you can learn patience and logic.

      Many have come to the fountain of knowledge,
      though few brought cups from which to sip,
      many from cupped hand drink, to quench the thirst.

      Do you know what washing your hands in the fount
      of knowledge is like to those coming after you,
      do you know where those hands have been,
      rhetorical questions, all of course, for to sip
      its sweetness is why you came. Drink Deep.

      Mary (never narrow minded, ever open minded)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Doctrine for those wishing to inquire who the hell is this nutter talking about.

      1. @WaxyMary

        First of all, my excuses!!!

        You are the first person which has answered that question, logically. I’ve asked in the other post, did it also on other forums/blogs, always came an answer from a nutter debunker. (From their the inpatience)

        It may seem i’m just an other nutter, which is fine by me. It doesn’t matter.

        And actually i’m a graduate, but not in physics, an electronics/ict engineer.

        I thought it was deleted, until i found the Sort by combo box.

        Why, should it be interesting to read the secret doctrine? (And i know it’s Blavatsky (not batavsky))
        She has a remarkable eastern view on science, space and time. (I came to this book, by someone who was stating that Einstein had read it to. On page 148 there is clearly stated that all is mass and all is light)

        It’s just an other view, like their are so many. I’m certainly not convinced that that’s the only truth. Altough i’m convinced that science like it is now, isn’t complete. That we are using statistics for proving something is a lack of knowledge. (Imagine that an engineer makes a car or a software program, which is proven to work 6 days out of 7)

        Last of all, you to, can go nuts, looking at your reply. My question was ment to be asked at an undergraduate level, why? If i asked it differently, the answer wasn’t open, but direct.

        But still, i apologize for being that way, which isn’t a habit of mine, it became a frustration, that unanswered question. And thank you for answering logically!

        Sincerly,

      2. @Jef Jeffersons

        You say:
        “It’s just an other view, like their [sic, there] are so many. I’m certainly not convinced that that’s the only truth. Altough i’m [sic, Although I’m] convinced that science like it is now, isn’t complete. That we are using statistics for proving something is a lack of knowledge. (Imagine that an engineer makes a car or a software program, which is proven to work 6 days out of 7) [sic, .]”

        My reply:
        Jef, one of many concerns I have with the current educational system is the capability the system has to produce degree impaired graduates. You are not the only example though so do not take too much away with you.

        The idea that all knowledge is just opinion and all opinions are equal in import, capable of fitting the real word truly, and of equal weight is a false view.

        Frankly, you are not educated, trained, informed, inherently bright enough to carry an opinion, much less express it publicly in the fashions you have demonstrated.

        Please look into the quality of education possessed by 5th graders at the turn of the last century. Compare that to what you know of your own.

        I’ll bring your words here for ease of reading:
        “That we are using statistics for proving something is a lack of knowledge. (Imagine that an engineer makes a car or a software program, which is proven to work 6 days out of 7) [sic, .]”

        Statistics is a common subject for any engineer; mechanical, electric, quantum, chemical, and etc. The fact you make plain above is that you have no background in the sciences despite your claims. Is english your native tongue or are you not inclined to reading what you write or say and taking some time in editing it before you post it?

        I do not blame you but I do blame the institutions claiming to have educated you at ANY level, 1-6th grades, 7-9th grades, 10-12 grades, working toward an undergraduate degree. Tutors, teachers and parents all, and all of those humans with input into you are to blame; all have failed to instill in you a love of knowledge for its own sake, so to fill the need you latch on to what makes sense to your underdeveloped brain, the results are what we see here. Please self educate, it is never too late.

        Look up postmodern philosophy of education such as the article below. The article was chosen at random, btw, from the search results.

        http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Yearbook/93_docs/BECK.HTM

        Then look up the philosophy of education which came before what is current. See how each differs from the other. Some of these exercises are left to you, complete them as you may for it is your time to benefit.

        Mary

    2. I only delete posts if I feel they fall under the following categories:

      1. Spam, advertising, multiple postings, links to products or off-topic material, run-on paragraphs, typing in capital letters or other obnoxiousness.

      2. Postings that contain religious/extremist ideological pronouncements, or other completely off-topic conversations.

      3. Abusive language directed at other commentators/writers.

      5. Comments that contain an overt or hidden pseudoscience agenda.

  30. The problems that people have in believing these untruths is two fold:

    1. They dont’t trust governments and there is some justification for that attitude.
    2. They don’t know how to dig out the truth themselves. They must depend upon others and with the propensity of people to distust governments they can (and do) fall prey to people who do not tell the whole truth (Intentionally or not).
    When I first heard about Elenin it was from a dear friend who fits the situation in number 1 above. Since I know him to be a very good man who would probably be willing to listen to what I might turn up I immediately started to search the intenet for information about brown dwarfs. Finding that the smallest would have to be only a little more massive than Jupiter I searched for the diatance that it was (at that time) from us. As it was less than the distance of Jupiter from our planet or 4 to 6 AU. (An AU is distance of the Earth from the Sun,) My next question was, can you see it from our planet? After all it should be at least as bright with reflected sunlight as Jupiter is.
    Of course he could not. I recommended him to the Sydney Star Gazers site and soon he was telling me as well as others what they were observiing.
    He still is suspicious of governments, especially ours here in the USA, But he now knows a little more about how to dig out the truth himself. Will he do it next time? Probably not but with patience I expect that if not next time then perhaps the time after that or …
    And he is still my friend.
    Really what we need to do is to help others is to respect them and help them to learn how to solve this type of problem. As illustrated above it really doesn’t require degrees in physics or Astrophysics. It requires a willing mind and a few research skills.
    I hope that as amateur astronomers and professionals that we can start to do this. People are not stupid. They need a little knowledge the help them to overcome their ignorance and the resulting fear. If enough of us were to start using quiet voices perhaps we couod turn this abuse of people who really want to know into more people who can and will TTPT, think the problem through.
    Charley C. Langley Jr. Vernal, Utah, USA

  31. The problems that people have in believing these untruths is two fold:

    1. They dont’t trust governments and there is some justification for that attitude.
    2. They don’t know how to dig out the truth themselves. They must depend upon others and with the propensity of people to distust governments they can (and do) fall prey to people who do not tell the whole truth (Intentionally or not).
    When I first heard about Elenin it was from a dear friend who fits the situation in number 1 above. Since I know him to be a very good man who would probably be willing to listen to what I might turn up I immediately started to search the intenet for information about brown dwarfs. Finding that the smallest would have to be only a little more massive than Jupiter I searched for the diatance that it was (at that time) from us. As it was less than the distance of Jupiter from our planet or 4 to 6 AU. (An AU is distance of the Earth from the Sun,) My next question was, can you see it from our planet? After all it should be at least as bright with reflected sunlight as Jupiter is.
    Of course he could not. I recommended him to the Sydney Star Gazers site and soon he was telling me as well as others what they were observiing.
    He still is suspicious of governments, especially ours here in the USA, But he now knows a little more about how to dig out the truth himself. Will he do it next time? Probably not but with patience I expect that if not next time then perhaps the time after that or …
    And he is still my friend.
    Really what we need to do is to help others is to respect them and help them to learn how to solve this type of problem. As illustrated above it really doesn’t require degrees in physics or Astrophysics. It requires a willing mind and a few research skills.
    I hope that as amateur astronomers and professionals that we can start to do this. People are not stupid. They need a little knowledge the help them to overcome their ignorance and the resulting fear. If enough of us were to start using quiet voices perhaps we couod turn this abuse of people who really want to know into more people who can and will TTPT, think the problem through.
    Charley C. Langley Jr. Vernal, Utah, USA

    1. @Astroprof,

      In many cases I agree with what you state here. In some cases it is evident there is a deficit which would preclude the furtherance of enlightenment. For the latter a wake-up call is needed, wouldn’t you agree?

      Mary

      1. Disqus generic email templateMy answer was of course simplistic and was meant to stimulate thought and encouragement on the part of those of us who could help resolve the probem. People have a range of opportunities for education, to learn critical thinking, capabilities and motivations gain and use learned skills. How do you provide a wake up call? I would really like to know.
        The text books that I have examined from grade school through the college level are generally well written and most of the teachers that I have associated with are serious and good in their teaching methodologys. I taught as an adjunct professor in the physical sciences for a few years after my retirement. I liked my students. All of these courses taught critcal thinking skills. The students showed little desire to gain them. The mental effort seemed too much. It was easier slip by anyway that they could. Without these skills partial information can be turned into a lie. Otherwise good people can be mislead and the results can lead them to disaster. Can they be helped. Can any of our societies problems in these areas be addressed and solved? I think that it is possible. I don’t think that it is probable. Learning for the thrill of it must be taught somewhere and for me it was my parents home. I was never told: “don’t ask me stupid questions.” If my parents didn’t know the answer my mother who had a good highschool education would have me look it up in the families ‘Book of Knowledge’ encyclopedia. If the answer couldn’t be found there then we took advantage of the library and sought the answer there. Now I seek answers from my own collection of books or the internet. This methodology had helped with all of my children. They all know how to TTPT, Think The Problem Through. Could we encourage or help others learn some of these skills. Yes. Will we? The choice is theirs to listen and ours to patiently teach. Will it happen? I hope so, I fear not.

        Charley Langley

      2. @Astroprof,

        I liked your read on recent resources and current methodology among the teachers you have experienced as both a student and as a co-worker.

        Motivation will be provided until the factors change is the current solution, something like, the beatings will continue until moral improves. What if the solution is continued motivation, can we all accept the results of that, the exaustion

        “People have a range of opportunities for education, to learn critical thinking, capabilities and motivations gain and use learned skills. How do you provide a wake up call? I would really like to know.”

        Students & Teachers:

        Friends of mine who teach groups tell me there are 4 groups in just about any class or age level.

        1. Those who will learn from instruction and retain the knowledge for some little time.

        2. Those who will not learn because they are not tuned in to the quest for knowledge but, if tested, score well enough by rote work; less retention over time, but can be retrained.

        3. Those you can not hold back from the pool of knowledge, best to do for them is to instill order (to some extent, no need to cripple their creative skills as well) and a sense of personal purpose seeking. Enlist as tutors if possible, hope they are not beaten after class.

        4. Those who will never learn no matter what is done or provided.

        The hard facts of this listing reveal the best path through the tulips.

        Determine where each fits, at that time (make additional determinations as needed at later times), in the class, and create the best mix for all from the abilities of those present. Shuffle as needed. Attempt to give to each what works from your training and experience, broaden both as you can.

        Waste no more time on any one student than you spend with the best learner. All need the assistance from time to time. One of the hardest jobs as a teacher is to do nothing at the correct time. As in humor, timing is the key.

        Enlist those with tutoring skills for training those needing rote training to scrape by; hope they can ‘get through’ to the under-achievers and instill some amount of respect for the self-learning process so as to provide some support for their future needs. Hope they are not forced to provide homework results for the under-achiever.

        Leadership:

        Determine those un-training and under-assisting teachers’ lack of skills — provide solutions. This is a reformation task of course.

        Wake-up Call:

        The wake-up call for most folks is a face to face civil encounter. Since fears magnify fears, and kindness begets kindness, attempt to provide these, your students or teaching staff with tools to allay and magnify.

        If these courses of action do not work, try again. Triage is a hard task, some folks can be invaluable, others should not be involved — ask yourself, which of the 4 groups are you, today.

        Best student I had was myself, always a problem child if not a problem solver. Never a problem seeker, never a bully.

        There is always some mix of these factors present, will your days allow you to provide a decision or will derision be your lot today.

        Those who game the system become the system. a dire thought indeed.

        Mary

      3. Disqus generic email templateWaxyMary

        Thank you for your comments. I would have like to have been a better professor. I surely spent almost all of my discretionalry time preparing and trying to improve the course. If I have another opportunity to teach your council will be invaluable. Your email revealed to me that you know your profession and sincerely desire to teach your students, not just the subject.
        Sadly there is virtually no available tutors in Astronomy at the community college where I taught. It is a small school and has limited resources. There is no one to grade papers and exams, There are no lab assistants. The head of the Science Department helped al that his limited time allowed him to do. The college President did provide wonderful ten – 8 inch tracking telescopes and after I left finished a 16 inch ‘teacher demonstration telescope’ was completed.
        Unfortunately a new Dean decided to drop Astronomy at the community college where I was teaching and I have aged another year (I am now 71). It is unlikely that I will be able to teach again.
        Sincerely

        Charley Langley (Astroprof)

        —– Original Message —–
        From: Disqus
        To: [email protected]
        Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2011 7:42 AM
        Subject: [universetoday] Re: Worried About Comet Elenin? FAQs from Ian Musgrave

        WaxyMary wrote, in response to Astroprof:

        @Astroprof,

        I liked your read on recent resources and current methodology among the teachers you have experienced as both a student and as a co-worker.

        Motivation will be provided until the factors change is the current solution, something like, the beatings will continue until moral improves. What if the solution is continued motivation, can we all accept the results of that, the exaustion

        “People have a range of opportunities for education, to learn critical thinking, capabilities and motivations gain and use learned skills. How do you provide a wake up call? I would really like to know.”

        Students & Teachers:

        Friends of mine who teach groups tell me there are 4 groups in just about any class or age level.

        1. Those who will learn from instruction and retain the knowledge for some little time.

        2. Those who will not learn because they are not tuned in to the quest for knowledge but, if tested, score well enough by rote work; less retention over time, but can be retrained.

        3. Those you can not hold back from the pool of knowledge, best to do for them is to instill order (to some extent, no need to cripple their creative skills as well) and a sense of personal purpose seeking. Enlist as tutors if possible, hope they are not beaten after class.

        4. Those who will never learn no matter what is done or provided.

        The hard facts of this listing reveal the best path through the tulips.

        Determine where each fits, at that time (make additional determinations as needed at later times), in the class, and create the best mix for all from the abilities of those present. Shuffle as needed. Attempt to give to each what works from your training and experience, broaden both as you can.

        Waste no more time on any one student than you spend with the best learner. All need the assistance from time to time. One of the hardest jobs as a teacher is to do nothing at the correct time. As in humor, timing is the key.

        Enlist those with tutoring skills for training those needing rote training to scrape by; hope they can ‘get through’ to the under-achievers and instill some amount of respect for the self-learning process so as to provide some support for their future needs. Hope they are not forced to provide homework results for the under-achiever.

        Leadership:

        Determine those un-training and under-assisting teachers’ lack of skills — provide solutions. This is a reformation task of course.

        Wake-up Call:

        The wake-up call for most folks is a face to face civil encounter. Since fears magnify fears, and kindness begets kindness, attempt to provide these, your students or teaching staff with tools to allay and magnify.

        If these courses of action do not work, try again. Triage is a hard task, some folks can be invaluable, others should not be involved — ask yourself, which of the 4 groups are you, today.

        Best student I had was myself, always a problem child if not a problem solver. Never a problem seeker, never a bully.

        There is always some mix of these factors present, will your days allow you to provide a decision or will derision be your lot today.

        Those who game the system become the system. a dire thought indeed.

        Mary

        Link to comment

  32. Nice and neat 🙂
    Thanks for this post. But I have a question regarding Elenins size. So far, and I’ve been following the topic since Elenin was discovered, there is no information that holds the ground about the size of the comet. Only estimation, which is not good enough, at least for me.

    If anybody has information about the size, please let me know.

    Regarding cometrs tail I quote Wiki about the Great Comet from 1861 you are refering to.
    Quote: “The comet of 1861 interacted with the Earth in an almost unprecedented way. For two days, when the comet was at its closest (0.1326 AU), the Earth was actually within the comet’s tail, and streams of cometary material converging towards the distant nucleus could be seen. By day also the comet’s gas and dust even obscured the Sun.” Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/1861_J1

    1. We know that comet Elenin is much smaller than the Great Comet Hale-Bopp. Comet Hale-Bopp was was discovered on July 23, 1995 when it was 7.1AU from the Sun. Elenin was discovered on December 10, 2010 when it was 4.2AU from the Sun.

      Comet Hale-Bopp was estimated to be ~60km in diameter. On 2011-Feb-10 Elenin was 3.5AU from the Sun (mag 18.5 as seen from Sun) and 2.7AU from the Earth at magnitude 18. When Hale-Bopp was 3.5AU from the Sun (1996-Aug-08 @ magnitude 8.8 as seen from Sun), it was also 2.7AU from the Earth at magnitude 8.3. At 3.5AU from the Sun and 2.7AU from the Earth, Hale-Bopp was roughly 7,600 times brighter (2.512^(18-8.3)) than Elenin at the same distance.
      http://www.springerlink.com/content/pr2756540kx94403/

      So, yes we do know that Elenin is a small typical comet.

      1. Hi Kevin,
        Lucky you 🙂 The rest of us must wait till somebody actually measures the thing.

      2. @pexon yet again,

        The measurements HAVE been made. We do know for sure the LIMITS and some margin of error.

        We know it is no larger than a figure and no smaller (yet) than a figure both with reasonable error limits, you reject that system of measurements and provide no reason.

        When we measure a room with a tape measure and we find it is just about so long and so wide we say it is that rounded figure in sq feet, square meters or the cubic of either. There is NO difference with this set of figures and the method of obtaining them. The tape can only measure what you place it against you must think. Try a different way dude.

        You want to climb or cut the flag pole when other, better methods are known, please repeat and this time learn your lessons in grammar school. Please stop re-posting your doubts and fears as comebacks.

        What exactly are you implying with your repeated comment of “no one knows, for sure, dudes”. We do know for sure the LIMITS, if you are not comfortable with that data, then explain WHY your discomfort exists.

        Then explain the probable solution to your dilemma, and use small words, because I, like many here, am tired of your lack of sighted vision and/or reading comprehension as re this particular comet; a rather ordinary comet as has been explained many many times before.

        Mary

  33. Nice and neat 🙂
    Thanks for this post. But I have a question regarding Elenins size. So far, and I’ve been following the topic since Elenin was discovered, there is no information that holds the ground about the size of the comet. Only estimation, which is not good enough, at least for me.

    If anybody has information about the size, please let me know.

    Regarding cometrs tail I quote Wiki about the Great Comet from 1861 you are refering to.
    Quote: “The comet of 1861 interacted with the Earth in an almost unprecedented way. For two days, when the comet was at its closest (0.1326 AU), the Earth was actually within the comet’s tail, and streams of cometary material converging towards the distant nucleus could be seen. By day also the comet’s gas and dust even obscured the Sun.”

    Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/1861_J1

    regards,
    Petar

  34. Nice and neat 🙂
    Thanks for this post. But I have a question regarding Elenins size. So far, and I’ve been following the topic since Elenin was discovered, there is no information that holds the ground about the size of the comet. Only estimation, which is not good enough, at least for me.

    If anybody has information about the size, please let me know.

    Regarding cometrs tail I quote Wiki about the Great Comet from 1861 you are refering to.
    Quote: “The comet of 1861 interacted with the Earth in an almost unprecedented way. For two days, when the comet was at its closest (0.1326 AU), the Earth was actually within the comet’s tail, and streams of cometary material converging towards the distant nucleus could be seen. By day also the comet’s gas and dust even obscured the Sun.” Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/1861_J1

    Regards,
    Petar

    1. “By day also the comet’s gas and dust even obscured the Sun. ”

      Petar, notice that no references for this statement are given in Wikipedia (and in this case should be challenged). I’d be interested if a statement to this effect appeared in the popular press (likely) or a scientific journal.

      1. Jon, point noted. There is no valid reference in that article.

        But that was exactly my point too. Let me explain.
        I understand this is a place we talk science. I have deep respect for todays science. We are greatly what we are today thanks to the science.
        What I’m pointing out here is that in nowadays scientific circles you can’t get scientific answer. In this case, they are stating that the size is 3km (or whatever). But in the reality, they don’t have a clue. They might know some stuff for certain, but the size is merely an estimate. Later would be scientific statement. Not doing so produces false conspiracy theories and undermines scientific credibility.
        And I’m hoping too nothing will harm us.

        Regards,
        Petar

    2. @pexon,

      This is a comet we are discussing after all, and like all such is going to change, decrease in mass on a daily basis, speed along its path to met the sun and then continue along the path to join the void, only to return since this comet is a long period comet.

      The size of what part of the comet. The length of which tail, the average diameter of the nucleus, the average diameter of the coma, the length and cubic of the debris swarm following. These are all figures which vary from day to day. Any figures you get will be superseded in spans of time we measure with charts on a wall.

      If what you wish to know is only estimation then ask yourself, is the estimation accurate enough, for you the answer is no, for others that set of figures and the limits of error are more than enough.

      What purpose do you have for the ‘exact’ size… why isn’t the average size of nucleus over time vs distance traveled enough for some reason. The remainder of figures for the terms such as I indicate above are ephemeral -they change rapidly. Some debris will not survive the passage round the sun, most of the gases in the coma will add to the thin gas of our system, these are just some of the reasons I ask the question.

      Mary

      1. Mary,
        of course, we all know it is not all about the size. I was making a point about one part of the article. See my reply to Jon if interested.
        Petar

      2. @pexon,

        Let us say, for the sake of argument, the ion or debris tail of that comet did appear to engulf the position the Earth was describing at that time in its travel about our Sun.

        1. If the tail is much as we commonly entertain from our current knowledge then the Earth’s sky was capturing some of the ionized gases from the outgassing of the comet. There is a lot of thickness to our atmospheric shell(s). Our magnetic field will also be impacted –to no great extent though.

        2. If the two tails happen to be aligned with the position of Earth there will be stony debris as well as the ionized gases. This would not be uncommon at all, each year the Earth passes through the paths described by prior comets’ tails. These events give rise to the meteor showers. In that event we would be within the passing tail and not just passing through the path the tail passed, if that makes any sense to you.

        3. The currents of space within our system are filled with remnants, debris from the passage of prior comets, asteroids and what not. The spalling of these tiny fragments is not the same as the calving of very large comets into additional large chunks.

        Unless these items are large enough to be seen in the EM spectrum we monitor and great enough in mass and/or EM field strength to effect our planet, and additionally pose a very close passage, there is never any need to pay much attention to them by the general public. We all like a great show in the skies, of course, and if this comet was to display such then we would all be looking up. The simple facts do not support that view though and those pseudo-facts being drummed in the scary night are so untrue as to make anyone who has a lick of common sense shudder at the onslaught of trivial questions, answers to which could be easily discovered by consulting any standard encyclopedic reference book or system. This comet, for example, will not come any nearer to our Earth than the distance of about 1/2 the distance from Earth to the Sun in length and will not track our plane of orbit.

        Additionally I wish to state very plainly that your several postings do indicate your thoughts. These thoughts about needing to know the exact size are very telling so please do not pretend you are just asking, or just talking about the ‘one thing’ in some article (which you posted as some type of evidence to support your fears).

        Mary

  35. I want to know if this asteroid 2005 YU 55 is a threat as it shows in this Graph to come very close to Earth passing by in November ? see the Graph jere in this Link that Shows asteroids and comets Elenin , Levy and 2005 YU 55 , here are 2 links that show the Graph ; http://www.ufo-blogger.com/2011/04/nasa-elenin-2011-comet-planetary.html , and , http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news171.html

    They say it misses but BUT what promoted this Letter that came out Last October from the Whitehouse Science CZAR John Holdren with Warnings as to preparing agencies of potential events ?? Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp-letter-neos-house.pdf

    In breaking down this letter, it’s important to address several questions that have since more recent information come to light.

    After the letter above clearly shows how important it is to monitor such incoming objects due to their propensity to “change” orbit?

    Why was it that NASA turned off the granddaddy of all NEO (Near Earth Objects) telescopes & SETI ATA this year.

    Flashback Quote:

    The WISE spacecraft will remain in hibernation without ground contacts awaiting possible future use.
    Feb. 17, 2011Space.com http://www.space.com/10895-nasa-wise-space-telescope-mission-ends.html

    The SETI ATA has been in hibernation – a safe mode of sorts, where “the equipment is unavailable for normal observations since April 15, 2011. Universetoday.com http://www.universetoday.com/85121/budget-woes-put-setis-allen-telescope-array-into-hibernation/

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