[meteorite-list] BREAK! For the love of meteorites, STOP -- COMET 73/P

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun May 14 17:03:39 2006
Message-ID: <002601c67799$db63cbd0$f12e4842_at_ATARIENGINE>

Doug, List,

    I abase my unworthy self, to be Japanese about it.
I Googled for orbit data, and didn't Google deep enough.
It's a virtual Jupiter-Earth Shuttle, it seems. I re-traced
my steps from my browser history and discovered a
wrong click pulled the data from a different object, a
perfect three-in-the-morning error.
    At 3 ayem, I should be asleep or squinting at comet
fragments instead of posting... Anyway, I take it all back.
    So close, but so dim. The rapid breakup which formerly
brightened it prematurely is extinguishing it prematurely now.
Why can't we have a nice fresh long-period comet with
an absolute magnitude of -1 and a close approach in the
midnight zenith position for the northern hemisphere at
the time of a new moon?
    Don't want much, do I?

Sterling
-----------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: <MexicoDoug_at_aol.com>
To: <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>; <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 4:46 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] BREAK! For the love of meteorites, STOP --
COMET 73/P


> Sterling, "Stable Orbit for Millennia for 73P"? Not a snowball's chance in
> errr,, the hot box (ref.: baseball play, a.k.a. a rundown in the pickle)!
> The
> similar basic mechanism that delivers meteorites to us has made this a
> very
> "Hot" comet in its recent passes. It has several encounters with Jupiter
> over
> the last 100 years which have probably significantly tagged it out and
> knocked
> its orbit silly, not to mention Earth, too, which hits it when it is nice
> and
> soft. In 1965 it passed just a 0.25 AU from Jupiter and that is a pretty
> deadly thing - with accelerations, and that is just one of the large
> examples.
> This comet pile currently has an aphelion of 5.2- AU an itsy bit inside of
> Jupiter's (5.2+ AU) orbit, and a perihelion of 0.94 AU just inside Earth's
> (1.0 AU)
> orbit... as we speak it is around 0.05 to 0.06 AU from Earth - so you can
> see
> it isn't too far out of the plane field. Thus the comet's orbit is
> between
> about as close as you can get - or a bit too close- between Earth and
> Jupiter.
> Talk about being between a rock and a hard place...if Comets are "Hairy
> Stars"
> SW-3 is certainly getting its hair pulled...hope that puts it in better
> perspective and that one thing doesn't bother you as much now!
>
> I don't think the comet needed to be especially weak, or any specific
> fault
> line, or any of that reasoning. It is just "in-play" at the moment.
> Another
> day in the life of the Solar System. And you're lucky to be in the
> Stadium
> with front row seats. I just looked for component B which is at closest
> approach
> to the Earth. The Full Moon 90 degrees away totally washes it out.
>
> Saludos, Doug
>
> PS According to Japanese calculations it came apart in 1995.
> PPS This comet has been know for flare ups in prior apparitions, so again,
> nothing suprising, we're just in the right place at the right time and the
> camel's back is broken.
> Sterling W. wrote:
>
> << What bothers me about Comet 73P is this: It can't be a
> "new" comet (even though we discovered it in 1930). The orbit
> is too stable for the comet to have recently been thrown in
> there. It's been around for centuries, probably millennia, in
> this same orbit. Yet, it has unraveled so quickly and easily.
>
> Once it started to come apart, sometime between 1990
> and 1995,>>
>
Received on Sun 14 May 2006 05:03:31 PM PDT