Hubble Spots Farthest-Ever Incoming Active Comet
A new image reveals a distant newcomer to our solar system: the farthest active comet ever spotted, heading toward the sun for the first time.
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Tau.Neutrino said:
Hubble Spots Farthest-Ever Incoming Active CometA new image reveals a distant newcomer to our solar system: the farthest active comet ever spotted, heading toward the sun for the first time.
more…
Bit of confusion in that article.
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Hubble Spots Farthest-Ever Incoming Active CometA new image reveals a distant newcomer to our solar system: the farthest active comet ever spotted, heading toward the sun for the first time.
more…
Bit of confusion in that article.
Yes, the Oort Cloud is believed to be part of the solar system, but the writer refers to this comet “entering the solar system for the first time”.
Bubblecar said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Hubble Spots Farthest-Ever Incoming Active CometA new image reveals a distant newcomer to our solar system: the farthest active comet ever spotted, heading toward the sun for the first time.
more…
Bit of confusion in that article.
Yes, the Oort Cloud is believed to be part of the solar system, but the writer refers to this comet “entering the solar system for the first time”.
I have a lot of conceptual trouble with this. The Oort cloud is so far away from the Sun that it should have been stripped off by now by interactions between the solar system and other passing stars. Comets are being continually ejected from our Oort cloud into interstellar space so why don’t we see comets that have been ejected from the Oort Clouds around other suns. It just doesn’t make sense.
“entering the solar system for the first time” just means near-parabolic orbit.
> The Hubble Space Telescope captured a view of Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS), called K2 for short, as it came in from out beyond Saturn’s orbit, 1.5 billion miles from the sun. As it approaches the sun and the temperature rises from minus 440 degrees Fahrenheit, the comet is developing a fluffy cloud of dust, called a coma, which surrounds its frozen body. While the comet’s nucleus appears to be just 12 miles across, the coma stretches 10 times Earth’s diameter.
Saturn’s orbit is a very long way out to be showing a coma on solar system approach. This is a temperature below -203 Celsius. -440 F is -262 C. Oxygen has a boiling point of just -183 Celsius and Nitrogen -196 Celsius. So what’s the coma made from?