In case you haven't heard yet, there is a comet heading away from the sun, but towards us, that is lighting up the early morning sky. Visible with binoculars, it will probably be bright enough that you'll see it even without if you know where to look. The peak time for viewing is February 24th, so I'm giving you due warning. Tonight it's in the constellation Virgo at rises at about 10 PM. But please don't look for it then; it will be right on the horizon and will have to battle light pollution and trees in the line of sight. Wait a few hours for best viewing.
Lulin will be rising about 20 minutes earlier every night, so it will be in a better position by the 24th. However, February 24th isn't the only time to see the comet. It will be visible before and after, so don't stress if you miss it on the peak observing night.
You can find the full story and lots of other cool stuff I've left out for brevity's sake at this link.
Showing posts with label comets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comets. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Questions From Readers
I love questions from my readers! So far I have received two, and I will answer one in this post. The other will have to wait a bit, it was pretty complicated. (It has to do with the space time continuum, in case you're curious.) But before I go on, I would like to reiterate that I love love love questions from readers. So ask away!
Flem in Santa Barbara, CA asks: "I need to know if it is possible that I saw a comet last weekend or if it was just an amazing shooting star that lasted for a couple of seconds."
Short answer: a meteor, not a comet.
Long answer: Comets are big balls of ice and dust (imagine a dirty snowball a few miles across) that orbit the sun in elliptical (oval-shaped) paths. As they orbit the sun, sometimes they are in a location where we can view them from Earth. When we see a comet in the sky, it looks like a kind of dim star with a faint tail behind it. Comets appear in the sky for weeks or even months, in pretty much the same spot night to night. Meteors are flashes of light created when specks of dust, most around the size of a grain of sand, enter the earth's atmosphere and the friction between air and the dust causes a tunnel of flames. (Contrary to the popular misnomer, meteors are not shooting stars at all; meteors=light from a speck of dust, stars=huge burning balls of gas a million miles across.)
So if you saw something bright flash across the sky and then disappear in a matter of minutes, I'm going to say it was a meteor and not a comet. It may have even been a stray Quadrantid.
Flem in Santa Barbara, CA asks: "I need to know if it is possible that I saw a comet last weekend or if it was just an amazing shooting star that lasted for a couple of seconds."
Short answer: a meteor, not a comet.
Long answer: Comets are big balls of ice and dust (imagine a dirty snowball a few miles across) that orbit the sun in elliptical (oval-shaped) paths. As they orbit the sun, sometimes they are in a location where we can view them from Earth. When we see a comet in the sky, it looks like a kind of dim star with a faint tail behind it. Comets appear in the sky for weeks or even months, in pretty much the same spot night to night. Meteors are flashes of light created when specks of dust, most around the size of a grain of sand, enter the earth's atmosphere and the friction between air and the dust causes a tunnel of flames. (Contrary to the popular misnomer, meteors are not shooting stars at all; meteors=light from a speck of dust, stars=huge burning balls of gas a million miles across.)
So if you saw something bright flash across the sky and then disappear in a matter of minutes, I'm going to say it was a meteor and not a comet. It may have even been a stray Quadrantid.
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