A new comet, partial of a comet family with paths that fly within a hairsbreadth of a sun, will be making a closest proceed to a sun later currently (Dec. 15).
is en track toward what many astronomers trust will be a ultimate destruction: nearing during a perihelion â€" a closest proceed to a star â€" at around 7 p.m. EST (0000 GMT on Dec. 16).
At that point, the comet should be a meagre 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) from a solar photosphere. Since it will be flitting by a sun's greatly prohibited corona, where temperatures of adult to 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 million degrees Celsius) have been measured, a comet is not approaching to survive, approaching being totally consumed by a impassioned heat.
But  does not take it directly into a sun. In sequence to shun such a fate, a comet contingency pierce impossibly fast. Around a time of a closest approach, a comet will whip around a object on a hairpin-like bend during a speed of over a million miles per hour. []
Chance of survival
So what if survives?Â
On that really little possibility, there is a really slim possibility that observers competence locate steer of it in extended daylight.Â
Sungrazing comets are famous Kreutz comets, after a 19th century astronomer Heinrich Kreutz who initial showed that they were related. Such comets have, in a past, quickly flared into impassioned luminosity around a time of their closest approach to a sun. In 1843, 1882 and 1965 such occurrences took place.Â
More recently, in 2007, a McNaught became splendid adequate to be seen in a daytime; all one had to do was retard out a sun with a palm or behind a building, and the conduct of a comet was manifest as a splendid pinch of light opposite the blue daytime sky.
"If comet Lovejoy gets as splendid as bulk -4 or -5, there is a little though non-zero possibility that it could turn manifest in a sky subsequent to a sun," pronounced comet researcher Karl Battams of a Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C. Astronomers bulk a liughtness of objects in space on a bulk scale in that reduce series magnitudes conform to brighter objects.
While Lovejoy will strech a brightest theatre around a time it's unconditional closest to a sun, it will be so tighten to a blindingly splendid front of a object that there is a really genuine risk that fresh observers regulating binoculars or telescopes to locate a comet could incidentally end up removing a discerning glance at a object and mutilate their eyesight for a prolonged time, if not forever. Thus, acid for Lovejoy is really not endorsed around that time.
Observing tips
But on Friday morning, there is a chance â€" despite a very small chance, given it will be contingent on Lovejoy flourishing a burning brush with a object â€" that it competence uncover itself around sunrise.Â
From North America, depending on your location, a comet will arise approximately 5 to 10 mins before sunrise and will be situated to the upper right of a sun. If it is still intact, and resplendent as splendid as, or brighter than Venus, afterwards there is a possibility that the comet competence be visible.Â
After a object comes up, we competence still try to see a comet, though again, use extreme caution.Â
Try to retard a rising object behind a apart building and concentrate on a partial of a sky about 3 to 4 degrees above and to a right (your clenched fist hold during arm's length is equal to roughly 10 degrees). IMPORTANT WARNING: Do not indicate binoculars or a telescope directly during a sun! Severe eye repairs can result.
The betting income is that we won't see anything. Comet Lovejoy will approaching possibly be too faint, or will have totally disintegrated after a suicidal plunge near a object hours earlier.
But we can safely check on a comet's standing by examination it around imagery from a SOHO satellite's LASCO-C3 camera, here:
NASA will also emanate a website to yield updates on comet Lovejoy's pass by a sun's corona. The website residence is approaching to be expelled after today, space group officials have said.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest techer during New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.
News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/comet-lovejoy-encounter-sun-today-see-192703890.html
