[meteorite-list] Comet Holmes

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:56:29 -0500
Message-ID: <012f01c81a8f$b58ef6b0$c944e146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,

> does not preclude the possibility of
> getting wacked twice in 100+ years

Are you saying that some of us are just unlucky?


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry" <grf2 at verizon.net>
To: "Chris Peterson" <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>;
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Comet Holmes


Offering arguments to account for reality, i.e.. observed phenomenon, where
logic is fully implemented, when other KNOWN probabilities, i.e. solar
excitation [at least in the present (12 min.)] are eliminated or at the very
least, less likely than alternatives, NO MATTER THE MATHEMATICAL ODDS, would
lend itself to collision.
I suggested this the first night this Comet entered the List discussion.
Sterling's "accompanying" fragments does nicely provide a credible
suggestion to explain the repetitious nature of the event, BUT passage
through SPACE, as EMPTY as it is does not preclude the possibility of
getting wacked twice in 100+ years.
Jerry Flaherty
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Peterson" <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 7:08 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Comet Holmes


>I don't disregard the possibility of collisions with co-orbiting material.
>But the probability of colliding with something while passing through the
>asteroid belt is still exceedingly small. That zone is still basically
>empty space- very little material spread out in a massive volume.
>
> Chris
>
> *****************************************
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatory
> http://www.cloudbait.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> To: "Chris Peterson" <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>;
> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 4:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Comet Holmes
>
>
>> Hi, Chris, List
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> The problem with probability is the probability of the
>> assumptions that are applied. If 17P is an isolated object
>> and any impactor must come from another unrelated orbit,
>> the likelihood of any collision, ever, is very, very low.
>>
>> Like all short period periodic comets, it is assumed
>> that 17P was perturbed into its present orbit, probably
>> by Jupiter. Since its orbit ranges from Jupiter to Mars
>> and is inclined to the solar system plane, 17P must transit
>> the Asteroid Zone twice every orbit (i.e., every 3.5 years).
>> One might pass harmlessly through the Zone at many
>> locations; at other places, you might not be so lucky.
>>
>> If 17P is undergoing an on-going disintegration (from
>> a past major impact, perhaps very long ago), it may well
>> share its orbit with many smaller, darker (harder) fragments,
>> millennia-worth of its own "space-junk," a debris stream,
>> possibly arising from this ancient impact or partial breakup.
>> This would raise the probability of future "trouble" from
>> near zero to near 1.0. There may be more than one debris
>> stream accompanying it, braided around the principal orbit,
>> with objects distributed along the stream. Such streams
>> would be quite invisible to us. In the case of Holmes, the
>> odds of an outburst per orbit seem to be 12 to 1 against.
>>
>> Collisions with co-orbiting objects occur at very small
>> velocity differentials (from the speed of a man walking
>> briskly up to that of a fast runner). Such collisions are not
>> catastrophic but damaging: gouging, ripping, crushing,
>> crust-breaking, volatile churning affairs. Once a century
>> is not that unlikely for such glancing impacts if there enough
>> co-orbiting fragments (especially the more silicate ones).
>>
>> On the other hand, there may be no external impact event
>> responsible; it may be the result of some endogenous process
>> we do not understand. Whipple began the creation of models
>> that explain comet behavior and self-modification of their orbits,
>> the effects of thermal exposure, and so forth, and these models
>> have been greatly elaborated over the years, yet we cannot
>> explain much of comet behavior. Whipple suggested that Holmes
>> had been a "double" comet in which the pairs collided.
>>
>> Holmes is a prime example of this. We think that it never gets
>> close enough to the Sun to explain the outbursts, but both the
>> discovery outburst and the present one occured after perihelion
>> passage with some delay. In both the discovery brightening and
>> the present one, the delay was five months! (June 16, 1892 to
>> November 6, 1892 -- 143 days; with a second outburst of equal
>> brilliance 60 days later. May 4, 2007 to October 24, 2007 --
>> 173 days. A 60-day second outburst would make Holmes
>> a Christmas Comet.)
>>
>> Does perihelion warming trigger some internal mechanism
>> that takes about five months to "boil up"? Or does Holmes catch
>> up with a stream of significant debris (a collisional association)
>> about five months after perihelion and sometimes interact
>> collisionally with it?
>
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Received on Mon 29 Oct 2007 08:56:29 PM PDT