Comet Loses Tail When Passing By the Sun

Comet Lovejoy suffers less damage than expected.


Summary: A newly seen comet lost its long, bright tail as it passed through the sun’s atmosphere December 15. According to solar researcher Karl Battams, the comet, named Comet Lovejoy, had its tail when it entered the sun’s corona but reappeared tailless on the other side. The tail could still be seen “gently floating out in space where it was before perihelion,” according to Battams.


The comet passed within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of the sun’s surface. Instruments called coronagraphs on several space observatories noticed the encounter. Battams indicated surprise that the comet was able to survive in the several million-degree solar corona for almost an hour.


Lovejoy’s tail may be older dust and gas ejected before the comet entered the corona. Comet tails are created when their icy surfaces warm up to create a gas that gets blown outward by the sun’s solar wind. Some of the comet’s gases can also be changed into charged ions to form an ion tail.  Comet tails always point away from the sun, and Battams thinks Lovejoy will eventually regrow a new one.


Battams and other astronomers were amazed by the unexpected survival of comet Lovejoy because comets usually are destroyed by their close encounters with the sun. This comet was discovered by and named after Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, who first spotted it November 27.


(Photo of the famous Halley’s comet as seen in 1986, from Wikimedia Commons, credited to NASA/W. Liller.) 


To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.


Comment: Comets are not only among the most beautiful objects in space, but they do send a message. What they proclaim is that we live in a young universe, or at least a young solar system.


Comets are sometimes called “dirty snowballs” because they are made up of frozen gases and dust. Scientists think they have been around since the beginning of the solar system. What normally happens whenever a comet approaches the sun is that ice in its nucleus evaporates and the comet is slowly destroyed over time. Many short-period comets have been observed to have grown dimmer each time they have been seen. Besides having to deal with an unfriendly sun, the perilous existence of comets is also increased by the danger of crashing into planets, as happened to Comet Shoemaker-Levy in 1994 when it smashed into Jupiter, and by the danger of being ejected from the solar system.


Astronomers agree that comets lead relatively short lives and, without some way of replenishing themselves, shouldn’t exist in an old solar system of billions of years. So secular cosmologists have come up with two hypothetical “birthplaces” for new comets. They speculate that something called the Kuiper Belt exists beyond Neptune where short-period comets (those with orbits of 200 years or less) are born and a farther-out Oort Cloud (for comets with longer orbits). The problem is that there is absolutely no evidence either one exists. A number of objects beyond Neptune besides Pluto have been found. They are called Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) or Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), but they tend to be too large to ever become comet nuclei.


Some 2,000 years ago there was a bright object in the sky that did send an entirely different message. A “star” appeared at the time of Jesus’ birth to announce to some Wise Men that the long-awaited Messiah had been born. It likely was a supernatural object because its description in the Bible does not seem to fit with any natural explanation. But its message is one everybody should take to heart. The Savior, whose life and death earned for us the forgiveness of our sins and the certainty of an eternal life in heaven, has come and completed His work. This is why we have such joy at Christmastime. 


“After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh” (Matthew 2:9-11). 


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QUESTION OF THE DAY


How many different versions of A Christmas Carol have been filmed?


Including movies like Scrooged and Ebbie, more than 60 English-language adaptations of the Charles Dickens classic have been produced for either the movie theaters or television.


Source: Parade (December 25, 2011) 


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