NASA Says Comet Fragments Won't Hit Earth

[TechBear_Seattle]

Chunks of a comet currently splitting into pieces in the night sky will not strike the Earth next month, nor will it spawn killer tsunamis and mass extinctions, NASA officials said Thursday.

The announcement, NASA hopes, will squash rumors that a fragment of the crumbling Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW 3) will slam into Earth just before Memorial Day.

"There are some Internet stories going around that there's going to be an impact on May 25," NASA spokesperson Grey Hautaluoma, told SPACE.com. "We just want to get the facts out."

Astronomers have been observing 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, a comet that circles the Sun every 5.4 years, for more than 75 years and are confident that any of the icy object's fragments will remain at least a distant 5.5 million miles (8.8 million kilometers) from Earth - more than 20 times the distance to the Moon - at closest approach between May 12 and May 28.

The complete article can be read at http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060427/sc_space/nasasayscometfragmentswonthitearth

[slackmaster]

1. Darn, I wonder if it's too late to cancel my titanium roofing order

:tinfoilhat:

[Canuckistanian]

2. Nice to know we're not all going to die

Thanks for clearing that up, NASA.
:rofl:

[PinkTiger]

3. I'm not sure I believe NASA.

This is the first I've heard of it, but why should I believe them? More likely, it is going to hit us, and they are just telling this to stop the panic.

[benburch]

4. Because the information came from a nutcase channeller.

The original claim had not even a passing acquaintance with reality.

[Phoonzang]

5. Well that's interesting...

Someone at NASA listens to Coast to Coast AM with George Noory.... :)

[Bill McBlueState]

6. don't they have better things to do?

I would think NASA has better things to do than quash internet rumors.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Hubble captures the shattering of a comet (CNN)

Friday, April 28, 2006; Posted: 1:34 p.m. EDT (17:34 GMT)



(CNN) -- NASA and the European Space agency have released new images from the Hubble Space Telescope showing the dramatic breakup of comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. The comet's nucleus has shattered into more than 33 pieces, and is likely to continue to disintegrate.

Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 goes around the sun every 5.4 years, and is on course to make the closest approach of this orbit on June 7. Along the way, it will pass 7.27 million miles (11.7 million kilometers) from Earth on May 12. No piece is projected to hit Earth.

European astronomers captured a series of still images of the fragmentation using an instrument aboard the Hubble called the Advanced Camera for Surveys. They assembled those images into a time-lapse movie that shows the breakup in the kind of detail not possible with ground-based telescopes. Astronomers say the smallest pieces of comet visible in the Hubble images are probably the size of a house. (Watch the comet shatter in the depths of space -- 1:05)
***
more: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/04/28/comet.breakup/index.html

[jus_the_facts]

8. NASA has an UPDATE......

...http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/neo_ca?type=NEC;type=NEC;hmax=all;tlim=recent_future;dmax=0.1AU;max_rows=200;fmt=full;action=Display%20Table;show=1&sort=dist_min&sdir=ASC

The table below shows 60 close-Earth approaches by NECs (Near-Earth Comets) sorted by minimum possible distance.
Only those close approaches within 0.1 AU occurring on or after 2006-May-03 UT and within 60 days are included

:wtf:


Object
73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3-BD 2006-May-11 21:53 ± 11:11 Nominal
(LD/AU) Miss Distance 33.7/0.0867
Minimum
(LD/AU) 0.04/0.00010 14.79 14.78 3 n/a 1 JFc

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. Ah, but look at the "miss distance" column, LD data

LD, or lunar distance, is the average distance between the surface of the Earth and the surface of the moon. While the nearest fragment is expected to come within 0.0502 astronomical units (the average distance between the earth and the sun), it will still be 19.5 LD away, almost twenty times as far away from the Earth as the moon.

I don't think we have anything to worry about :hi:

[jus_the_facts]

13. That minimal distance at 0.04 LD made me really wonder.....

....doubt NASA would say we were gonna get hit anyway...not to cause panic and such...but thanks again for the explination! :hi:

[jus_the_facts]

9. Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3...WTF does this mean?

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/


During the 2006 return to perihelion, which for the main fragment C takes place on 2006 June 6 (just inside the Earth’s orbit), the comet began to fragment into more than 30 additional pieces.

:wtf:

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. Here is that quote, parsed

Perihelion is the point when a body orbiting the sun comes closest to the sun; the farthest point is called aphelion. Orbits are generally elliptical (meaning oval shaped rather than a circular), so if you think of the two "ends" of the ellipse, perihelion will be at one end and aphelion at the other. Earth's perihelion is currently in early January; that is why summers in the southern hemisphere are hotter than summers in the northern hemisphere, which occur towards the earth's aphelion. At perihelion, the earth is about five million miles closer to the sun.

Inside the Earth's orbit is nothing to be concerned with; it is not the same thing as "near earth." Remember, the sun and the planets Mercury and Venus are both inside the Earth's orbit.

Main fragment probably means the part of the comet still following the original path of the comet. Typically, it would be the biggest fragment as well.

So basically, Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 came in from the distant reaches of the solar system, crossed the earth's orbit and started around the sun. As it passed the sun, gravitational forces ripped the comet in to about 30 pieces. The main fragment will be at it's closest point to the sun on June 6 at a distance of about 149 million miles from the sun. That distance places it about half a million miles within the average distance between the earth and sun, which can be described as "just inside the earth's orbit."

Hope that helps :hi:

[jus_the_facts]

12. Thank You....

....I feel much better now!! :D

:hi:

[Xithras]

14. Even if it did hit us, it wouldn't be a really big deal.

At this point, the "comet" has shattered into more than 30 icy mini-comets, with the biggest chunk estimated to be no more than a couple hundred meters across. Since the vast majority of that would vaporize when it hit the atmosphere, any impactor would be very small...and still made of ice. While I wouldn't want to be the unlucky soul standing on the impact point, the damage radius from an impactor in this comet chain would be extremely tiny.