[meteorite-list] Comet Holmes

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 12:49:02 -0600
Message-ID: <00f801c81a5c$67381060$0a01a8c0_at_bellatrix>

In fact, the coma is not entirely symmetric. There is clearly a denser
region which is offset from the nucleus. This may be a product of
whatever caused the outburst, or it may be tail structure seen through
the coma- that remains to be seen.

Our imagination is perhaps contaminated by visions of Armageddon (the
movie) like geysers bursting from the surface, but in reality the escape
of gas may be much less violent. It isn't unreasonable to expect it to
obey the rules of diffusion, and produce a substantially spherical zone
of expanding material. It is likely that the nucleus is spinning.

The best argument against a collision is the absurd improbability of TWO
collisions in the last century, since this comet has a history of
outbursts.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Francis Graham" <francisgraham at rocketmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 12:34 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Comet Holmes


> Dear List,
> Yes, the clouds finnnallly cleared in the Ohio
> Valley. After a week of hearing the pitter patter of
> rain on the observatory roof, it cleared and I
> screamed aloud: "Now I can see Comet Homes!!!" I
> eagerly and excitedly rolled off the roof to the
> roll-off-roof observatory and paced the floor, waiting
> for darkness. 11:15 AM... 11:20 AM...11:25
> AM...Noon...12:05 PM....it seemed like an eternity.
> Finally, the terminator swept across me as if it were
> a great liberation from the oppressive rule of some
> garish solar dictator. I long already had the
> telescope circles set, locked, and tracking.
> Wowwweee Zoweee! I was not disappointed. What a
> beautiful totally symmetric outburst! What a wonderful
> comet!
> Sterling Webb's post is food for thought. Old
> periodic comets evaporate and their crusts get covered
> with a silicate carbonaceous crust, like melting ice
> on a roadside in spring. When pressure builds up and
> vapor-dust eruptions occur, it should fountain, like
> the wonderful beautiful megafountains of Hale-Bopp.
> But Comet Holmes?!? Noooooo. Something very bizarre
> is at work. There was no specific locality, the coma
> was symmetric.Is it an impact? Even a Carnacas-sized
> whallop on a small crusty periodic comet nucleus would
> do for a brightening; I suspect this (if an impact)
> was a bit larger. Which, renders it improbable. It's
> like a meteor hitting an area the size of Washington
> DC.
> But maybe that's what it is. After all, the
> fictional detective Charlie Chan once said, "Strange
> events often permit themselves the luxury of having
> occurred." Which sums up this outburst to a T.
> I toyed with the idea of the intervening Earth-Moon
> system acting as a gravitational focuser, from 1 AU to
> 1.3 AU, from sun-directed meteors, but the flux would
> not be much higher than the sporadic background.
>
> Francis Graham
Received on Mon 29 Oct 2007 02:49:02 PM PDT