Comet #ISON: Will the Government Shutdown Ruin #NASA's Big Chance?

from policymic.com: On October 1, the comet ISON will pass near Mars, where monitoring equipment can gain more information on what could be the comet of the century. As long as the coincidental government shutdown causing the furlough of nearly the entire workforce of NASA doesn't interrupt these observations, that is.

Icarus Comet ISON Pix

Hubble Space Telescope captured images on April 10 of Comet ISON.  ISON, is classified, an Icarus or Sungrazing Comet because of its close distance at perihelion to the Sun.  On November 28th, ISON will be 700,000 miles from the Sun.  The April 10th image taken as ISON hurtled towards inner solar system just within orbit of Jupiter.  Universe Today article explains, "comets become more active as they near the inner solar system, where the Sun's heat evaporates their ices into jets of gases and dust. But even at this great distance ISON is already active, with a strong jet blasting dust particles off its nucleus. As these dust particles shimmer in reflected sunlight, a portion of the comet's tail becomes visible in the Hubble image."  Will Comet ISON live up to advanced billing as one of brightest comets ever?

ScienceCasts: Comet of the Century

NASA Science informa- tive four minute video, considers prospects for light show in November by Comet ISON as it nears Sun. "Astronomers are keeping a close eye on a newly-discovered Comet ISON, which could become visible in broad daylight later this year when it skims through the atmosphere of the sun," informs You Tube caption.  Dr Tony Phillips, narrator, suggests ISON may break up and appear as a "string of pearls" in the sky!

Comet PANSTARRS En Route To Andromeda Galaxy Encounter

Bob King provides tips in Universe Today article for best viewing of Comet PANNSTARRS in the next week.  "Get ready for an comet encounter of the extragalactic kind. In less than a week, Comet PANSTARRS will slide by the Andromeda Galaxy, the brightest galaxy visible in northern hemisphere skies. On and around that date, you’ll be able to see them both glowing softly together in late evening and early morning twilight," writes King.  The article supplies specific guidance, directing reader to an area of morning or evening sky to spot comet:

"It won’t be long before the comet becomes circumpolar and remains visible all night long. The term refers to celestial objects that circle around the pole star without setting. The Big Dipper is the most familiar circumpolar constellation for much of the U.S. and Canada. On its journey to all-night visibility, PANSTARRS started pulling a double-shift this week. You can now see it both at dusk and at dawn. Although a bright moon will compromise the dawn view for a few days, you can watch for the comet low in the northeastern sky starting about hour and 15 minutes before sunrise. For the moment, it’s about the same altitude above the horizon during both morning and evening hours. Evening is still preferred only because the bright moon has finally departed the sky during the hour or so the comet is visible."

You can hardly go wrong, by simply, utilizing illustrations (top and bottom pictures) to help spot PANNSTARRS - hats off to Bob King!

Sunset Comet Pan-STARRS

"Comet Pan-STARRS has survived its encounter with the sun and is now emerg- ing from twilight in the sunset skies of the northern hemisphere. A NASA spacecraft monitoring the comet has beamed back pictures of a wild and ragged tail," reports You Tube.   Pan-STARRS is one of the brightest comets in years. You have a few more days to get out and take a look for yourself!

Comet PANNSTARRS: How To See It

Universe Today provides great guide to viewing Comet PanStarrs.  Writer David Dickinson describes what to expect this month:

"After gaining 15-20° degrees of elevation from our northern hemisphere vantage point, Comet PanSTARRS will then begin running roughly parallel to the western horizon on each successive evening for mid-northern latitude observers. This first half of March is also when Comet PanSTARRS will have the potential to appear at its brightest. In the best case scenario, we’ll have a comet with a -1st magnitude coma and a tail pointing straight up from the horizon like an exclamation point. In the worst case situation, we’ll have a +3rd magnitude fuzzy comet only visible through binoculars...But if you observe the comet on no other night, be sure to check it out on the evening of March 12-13th. The comet will have just crossed the ecliptic, and will be joined by a slim crescent Moon just over a day old. If you’ve got binoculars or a telescope, you might just be able to spy the planet Uranus at 6th magnitude only 24’ from the head of the comet on March 12th."

Comet Pannstarrs was discovered in 2011 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS website) on Maui.   The comet will be rising over western horizon for the next few nights with best opportunity around March 12th, when PannStarrs will be approximately 10 degrees above horizon..  PannStarrs remains visible through March 19th.  It's time to get out the binoculars!.

Comet PanSTARRS Visible In Northern Hemisphere March 8

CNNU.S. article advises: "...two comets are expected to put on a naked-eye spectacle for sky watchers in the Northern Hemisphere. Up first is Comet Pan-STARRS, which gets its funky name from the telescope credited with discovering it in June 2001: the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System in Hawaii. The comet is already visible through telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere, and it should swing into view over the Northern Hemisphere beginning around March 8." Amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy captured image (picture) on February 12, 2013 in Brisbane, Australia, using a QHY9 camera and an 8" telescope with 5 minutes exposure. You can peer skyward on Friday for some possible eye candy!

New Comet Might Blaze Brighter Than Full Moon

Stargazers mark your calendars for late 2013 as new comet potentially one of brightest in history!  Astronomy Now reports, "A new comet has been discovered that is predicted to blaze incredibly brilliantly in the skies during late 2013. With a perihelion passage of less than two million kilometres from the Sun on 28 November 2013, current predictions are of an object that will dazzle the eye at up to magnitude —16. That's far brighter than the full Moon.  If predictions hold true then C/2012 S1 will certainly be one of the greatest comets in human history, far outshining the memorable Comet Hale-Bopp of 1997 and very likely to outdo the long-awaited Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011 L4) which is set to stun in March 2013." Two Russian astronomers first spotted comet on Sept. 21st.

astronomycast revisits 1908 tunguska blast

The June 30, 1908 Tunguska blast remains an unexplained mystery.  Universe Today reports Astronomycast responded to requests by devoting episode 243 to the Tunguska event. The speculations are varied as to what happened in Siberia, over a hundred yeas ago. Explanations include the reasonable such as an asteroid or comet to Tesla test firing an energy weapon. Regardless, a fireball split the sky in the early daylight hours with sufficient force to throw people off their feet to land yards away at a distance of forty miles! Victims experienced also intense heat from blast that flattened over 60,000,000 trees in a 200 sq mile area. Astronomycast Episode 243 is well done, and Tunguska, a natural science phenomenon! Please listen to the hosts who provide recent evidence. A previous post on the Tunguska blast can be read here. It's very interesting stuff!

elenin = 11-9

The Comet Elenin mystery continues to be a story that keeps on giving! A swirling controversy and veritable cottage industry has grown from the name, Elenin. It's suggested ELENIN is an acronym that stands for Extinction Level Event Notable Impact Nemesis (ELENIN). A recent CNN article, "Comet ELENIN, Earthquakes and You," adds to the bizarre festival flavor of the spectacle, "Nov 9, 2011 the earth will supposedly cross the threshold of the debris tail of ELENIN on the same plain (assuming ELENIN is a real object that would be catastrophic)." The article recaps aspects such as the NASA warning to employees and underground bases at Denver International Airport. The recap is comprehensive yet seems odd due to the source? It's surfaced elsewhere that Elenin is code for 11-9, when Earth will be passing through the comet's tail. The date has also been chosen by FEMA to take over all broadcast facilities in an emergency test . For the conspiracy minded, illuminati number games invert it to read 9-11, which is the date Comet Elenin is closest to the Sun! Is it the case the truth is out there if only you have the eyes to see?

perseids coming attraction by meteorwatch 2011

A coming attraction to your night sky in the northern hemisphere are Perseids. "The stream of debris is called the Perseid cloud and stretches along the orbit of the comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it travels on its 130-year orbit. Most of the dust in the cloud today is around a thousand years old. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that was pulled off the comet in 1862." A Universe Today article, 'MeteorWatch is Coming! Look for Perseids With the Rest of the World," trumpets the meteorites which peak at 50-60 per hour in the predawn hours of Aug 12-13. MeteorWatch will enable you to share your skywatching with rest of the world through Twitter. A very good trailer for the spectacle is available here. Get off the couch this August and go out to catch a view of the nightsky!

elenin arrives oct. 28, 2011: hype or history?

A Camelot Roundtable video conference, Elenin (link to synopsis), offers new input into mystery comet headed towards Earth. Michael Salla, of exopolitics.org, provides nice summary of presenters in a recent Examiner article. Richard C. Hoagland began conference with "...presentation on the significance of Elenin's orbit, and why this pointed to...either an artificial object under intelligent control (an ancient spacecraft) or a natural body (a comet) that has been deliberately launched on an artificial orbit. He placed special emphasis on Elenin's perihelion (closest point to the sun) on September 11, 2011 as evidence that this was a result of artificial design to draw attention to the profound geopolitical events that occurred ten years earlier." Hoagland also noted coincidence on November 9, 2011 of FEMA Homeland Security Test and Asteroid 2005YU55 passing within 200,000 miles of Earth.

Keith Hunter, author and writer at Ancient World Mysteries website, offered his view, "Elenin is a small mass that could do something unusual if caught up in powerful harmonic configurations." This theme seemed built upon by Conference organizer Kerridy Cassidy, Richard C Hoagland and Dr. Joseph Farrell, who dismiss Elenin is a brown dwarf but see it exerting powerful gravitational effects through gravity waves. They offer explanation that this may be possible through torsion field physics. Salla is critical that Dr Mensur Omerbashich's observations on incidence of alignments and seismic activity, was not included more in discussions. Andy Loyd, Dark Star author, is also of opinion Elenin is a sub-brown dwarf. Dr Carl Johan Calleman, author and Mayan Calendar researcher believes, "..the world will enter a New Age based on an expanding 'unity consciousness.' While the precise ending of the Mayan Calendar is disputed by others advocating a December 21, 2012 end date, Calleman has produced cogent arguments for the October 2011 end date."

The Camelot Roundtable concludes Comet Elenin possesses artificial attributes, is of small mass, yet exerts strong gravitational influence effects. Elenin will pass closest to the Sun on September 11, 2011, a reader wonders what effect the comet may have on the Sun? The comet's closest approach to Earth is on October 28, 2011, and again, wonder what gravitational effect will be upon Earth--if any! Are we going to die from a solar flare's direct hit or a huge earthquake and tsunamis? November 9th will bring the asteroid's pass close to the moon? Will this near miss provoke a campaign to increase humanity's capabilities to knock out "dangerous" asteroids?  The secret agenda revealed by Wernher Von Braun to Carol Rosin to weaponize space.

A Universe Today article, "Comet Elenin: Just Passing By," is probably the reality. Humanity likes small doses of adrenaline at times, and why, horror films and sports are popular. An adrenaline rush may help explain the Comet Elenin media frenzy, but keep in mind the importance of a perceived threat to those who want to control our fates!

elenin = extinction level event notable impact nemesis

Ground Zero Media's Clyde Lewis provides interesting take on comet Elenin as revealed in the series, "The Event". Lewis admits, "...I literally have tuned out any commentary about Comet Elenin." It's an easily recognizable sentiment in light of overwhelming hype on doomsday scenarios. KXL Ground Zero Live's host notes agitated behavior has now caught his attention, "...whenever there is a comet or some Near earth object coming towards the authorities tend to overreact and there are strange things that go on behind the scenes leading me to believe that even governments and Military get a little unhinged when it comes to space anomalies of this magnitude." Is there more to the hysteria?

Michael Salla, of exopolitics.org, is Lewis' primary source from recent article, "The Event and Comet Elenin," where question posed, "What is the relationship between Comet Elenin and the Event? Perhaps nothing; or, maybe, a very lot indeed." This kind of inquiry is no longer frivolous with past examples of predictive programming in media. In 9-11 lore, "The Lone Gunmen Pilot," is infamous for plot to fly airliner into the World Trade Center. Perhaps of most interest, Bosnian earth scientist Dr Mensur Omerbashich using publicly available tracking software, found correlations between earthquakes and Comet Elenin alignments. Omerbashich's paper on the subject is available in .pdf format here. The paper suggests Elenin is far more massive than a comet, opening door as apparent support for existence of Planet X. Lewis and Salla wonder about possibility?

The TV series was canceled, as conspiracy theorists suggest in Lewis' article, because it got too close to the truth. The talk show host also ties emergency preparations around country as indicative of impending event. Numerology is, also, brought in and provides a "WOW" factor. Lewis implies alignment dates have occult portent, "... Comet Elenin will be at perihelion or the closest to the Sun on 11/9/11 and we will pass directly through its tail in 11/11/11."

Our present dilemma is summarized by Lewis, "...like the TV Show THE EVENT...we will wait and see if we will be renewed for next year...." Everyone seems to be pointing to the fall of 2011 for the event? We only have months to wait and see, whether an earthshaking planet appears in our sky!

video: sun-diving comet & coronal mass ejection

A video posted at Universe Today by SolarWatcher captures a comet diving into the Sun and a Coronal mass ejection (CME). The solar events recorded by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), on May 10-11, 2011, are condensed into little over one minute of streaming content. It's a spectacular and well-spent minute of your time!