10-30-17

Alien asteroid spotted dive-bombing our solar system. Astronomers may have discovered the first interstellar object, a comet or asteroid that’s broken free of another star to pay a visit to our sun. Did we get a visit from an interstellar object? Scientists believe it’s very likely. All the asteroids and comets astronomers have ever spotted in our celestial neighborhood appear to come from somewhere else in the solar system and orbit the sun, just like Earth. That is, until the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope last week discovered what appears to be the first ever seen “interstellar object” — an asteroid (or maybe a comet) that escaped from the gravitational grasp of another star and fell through the roof of our solar system. That makes the object currently designated A/2017 U1 an alien of sorts around our corner of the cosmos.

Solar System get a visit from mysterious interstellar object

Source Cosmos

Spectacular Comet 96/P Machholz on a Weird, Wild Swoop Around the Sun – MUST SEE

WATCH: Spectacular Comet 96/P Machholz on a Weird, Wild Swoop Around the Sun On Oct. 25, 2017, comet 96P entered the lower-right corner of C3 and skirt up and around the right-hand edge of the field of view, before leaving the field of view on Oct. 30. Comet 96P was also visible in SOHO’s field of view in 2012, 2007, 2002 and 1996, making it the most frequent cometary visitor to SOHO images. 96P is a fascinating comet. Amateur astronomer Don Machholz discovered the comet in 1986, and it was soon revealed to be short-period, meaning its orbit around the Sun is less than 200 years. Comet 96P completes an orbit every 5.24 years and has its closest approach to the Sun at a rather toasty 0.12 AU (18 million kilometers or 11 million miles). That’s very close for a comet, and that alone makes it interesting. But comet 96P has much more to offer!

First, it has a family – a big family! Comet 96P is the parent of two separate families of comets (SOHO’s “Marsden” and “Kracht” group comets), and the parent of the Daytime Arietid, Southern Delta Aquarids, and the Quadrantid meteor showers that Earth experiences every year. It might even be related to an asteroid. In addition, when comet 96P appeared in the SOHO’s field of view in 2012, astronomers discovered two tiny fragments some distance ahead of the main nucleus. This means that the comet is still actively evolving! A scientific study published in 2008 found that comet 96P has “extremely anomalous molecular abundances” — which basically means it has a really weird composition when compared to all the other comets we know about. In years past, comet 96P has produced some beautiful images from SOHO’s imagers. Its passage in 2002 was perhaps the most stunning so far, with a bonus coronal mass ejection, or CME, erupting just a few hours after the comet passed the Sun.

Sources Nemesis Maturity

#space #comet #interstellar #alien

Space Dust

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