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  • As ISON Has Fizzled, Comet Lovejoy Remains Visible

    Comet ISON has faded from sight, again, and astronomers are not expecting it to light up again. ISON rounded the sun yesterday at 18:45 UTC/ 1:45 p.m. EST, and appeared to be disintegrating. Some hold out hope it will show itself again, but nobody knows for sure.

    But as ISON fades, another comet is quietly showing its tail, the Lovejoy Comet.

    The newest comet was discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, hence the name, in December 2011.

    In late November, Comet Lovejoy was near the bottom of the handle of the Big Dipper.

    Comet Lovejoy, designated C/2013 R1 was found to the southeast of the constellation Orion and 1,600 times too faint to be seen without a scope.

    Now, the new comet is brightening as it heads toward the sun and will arrive at its closest point on Dec. 22 at a distance of 75.4 million miles away from Earth. This is when Comet Lovejoy will be most visible by the naked eye.

    While it is en route to its Dec. 22 rendezvous with the sun, Lovejoy will make its closest approach with Earth on Tuesday, when it will pass within 36.9 million miles of us.

    The Big Dipper should be your guide for seeing Comet Lovejoy, and although it’s not certain it will be visible without binoculars or telescope, due to the moon’s cycle, it will be best to view on Sunday night. Stargazers will be able to locate Comet Lovejoy, just before dawn.

    Comet Lovejoy and Comet ISON will pass each other between Dec. 18 and 20. They won’t get much closer than 10 degrees from one another, and Lovejoy should be just a faint, fuzzy blob, while observers hope that Comet ISON will have evolved into a lovely celestial showpiece by then.

    Image via NASA

  • Comet ISON Could Put On a Great Light Show

    Comet ISON Could Put On a Great Light Show

    In November of 2013, the universe is throwing a “dirty snowball” right within sight of our Earth. And it could end up being a spectacular sight.

    Comet ISON, named after the International Scientific Optical Network, a Russian program that discovered the comet last year. This particular comet is anywhere from 1 to 10 kilometers in size, based on what can be seen of it at this point. It just looks like a tiny speck right now.

    But ISON is a “sun-grazer”. It will fly through the sun’s atmosphere little more than a million km from the stellar surface. And as it nears the sun, it will start shedding ice and particles from its surface, really becoming visible. But a comet that gets this close to the sun could even fly completely apart, the result of which would be a magnificent light show. Even if it survives this trip past the sun, it could emerge glowing as brightly as the Moon, briefly visible near the sun in broad daylight. The comet’s dusty tail stretching into the night sky could create a worldwide sensation.

    Or the whole thing could fizzle. Some reporters have started calling ISON the “Comet of the Century,” but Don Yeomans of NASA Near-Earth Object Program thinks that’s premature.

    “I’m old enough to remember the last ‘Comet of the Century’,” he says. In 1973, a distant comet named Kohoutek looked like it would put on a great show, much like ISON. The actual apparition was such a let-down that Johnny Carson made jokes about it on the Tonight Show. “It fizzled,” says Yeomans. “Comets are notoriously unpredictable.”

    The trouble with comets is that they are basically “dirty snowballs” flying toward the sun. Tidal forces and solar radiation have been known to destroy comets. A recent example is Comet Elenin, which broke apart and dissipated in 2011 as it approached the sun.

    However, another comet that we could compare ISON to is Comet Lovejoy, which flew through the sun’s atmosphere in 2011. Lovejoy emerged intact and wowed observers with a garish tail for weeks.

    “Comet ISON is probably at least twice as big as Comet Lovejoy and will pass a bit farther from the sun’s surface,” notes Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory. “This would seem to favor Comet ISON surviving and ultimately putting on a good show.”

    If ISON does make it through it’s whip around the sun on Thanksgiving Day, it could be visible all night in parts of December and January.

    Even if ISON breaks up, there is no danger to Earth. The pieces would continue right along the same path the original comet was on.