Comet Passing Through Pegasus Square Is Breaking Apart

Elaine Meinel Supkis

A comet coming in from the cold outer perimeter of our sun's gravity pool is going to pass close by the earth's own, smaller gravity pool. On its way in, comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 began to disintigrate just like the one that hit Jupiter in July, 1994. Even disintigrating comets can be dangerous.

NASA:

In 1995, Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 did something unexpected: it fell apart. For no apparent reason, the comet's nucleus split into at least three "mini-comets" flying single file through space. Astronomers watched with interest, but the view was blurry even through large telescopes. "73P" was a hundred and fifty million miles away.

We're about to get a much closer look. In May 2006 the fragments are going to fly past Earth closer than any comet has come in more than twenty years.

The domain this comet is passing through is the constellation of Pegasus which rises in the east at the beginning of springtime. In 2002, a comet flew out of the Pegasus sector and as it rounded the sun, the sun spat out a huge ejection.

Space Watch:

By Joe Rao
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 07:00 am ET
03 April 2002

On March 18, just as newly found comet Ikeya-Zhang was making its closest approach to the Sun and wowing observers around the Northern Hemisphere, yet another Japanese observer discovered another new comet. This second comet has an outside chance of also becoming visible to the unaided eye later this month.

The International Astronomical Union reported on March 20 the discovery by Syogo Utsunomiya of a comet in twilight. Utsunomiya made his find using 25x150 binoculars. He initially described the comet as a tenth magnitude glow in the constellation Pegasus.

Comet Ikeya-Zhang, discovered by Kaoru Ikeya of Japan and Daqing Zhang of China on Feb. 1, has been sighted with the unaided eye by observers around the world and is estimated to have achieved magnitude 3.3.

So will there be two naked-eye comets (Ikeya-Zhang and Utsunomiya) visible in late April? Observers will likely have to wait and see.

"At perihelion, comet Utsunomiyas elongation from the Sun will be only 20 degrees," says Charles Morris of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Such a placement would put the comet uncomfortably close to the bright solar glare, leaving Morris to infer that this newest comet "will be difficult, if not impossible to observe when at its brightest."

It is interesting that these comets are coming in a cluster. Perhaps they are all from the same origin. We actually know very little about the immediate surroundings, relative to our earth. We can see some things in a generalized way. Namely, a huge star or gigantic galaxy can be detected with the right equipment but finer details are obscure unless we send out probes which is why the change from fuzzy pictures to near fly-by observations of the planets and moons closer to the earth are so awe inspiring and supersede all our expectations and artistic renditions!

If we ever get to see close up, the outermost edge of our sun's gravity well, it promises to be most amazing, at least, I suspect, not a void at all. Our galaxy has a lot of dirt and stuff caught up in the gravitational pull of the black hole(s) inhabiting the center.

Here is an animation of Shoemacker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter.

Here is one of many sites online that discuss the mystery of the Siberian explosion in 1904.

On June 30, 1908, a comet fragment collided with the earth's atmosphere in Russian Siberia. A great blue-white fireball, brighter than the Sun streaked through the sky, exploded six to eight kilometers in the atmosphere with a blinding flash and intense pulse of heat. The blast could be heard over 1,000 kilometers away. An electromagnetic pulse like anomalies were reported, and magnetic storm began a few minutes after the explosion.

Local and multinational teams of scientists have visited the site and observed the destruction that has taken place. The explosion flattened trees 30 kilometers from the central point in the Stony Tunguska River Valley. Sides of trees were burned 60 kilometers away. The blast destroyed over 6,000 square kilometers of forest as the pillar of smoke and dust rose over the area. No crater was found.

Some scientists believe that a two kilogram fragment came from Encke's comet. Scientists have concluded the explosion had the energy of a 30 megaton hydrogen bomb.

People were burned and died unusual deaths that are similar to radiation exposures from nuclear blast. The chief of the Tungus people declared the area enchanted and sealed off.
Both plant and animal life at the epicenter and along the trajectory have been affected genetically. Trees and plants have an accelerated growth rate.
There were no meteorite pieces. Tiny green globules of melted dust called trinitites were discovered in the area, similar to those produced at the Trinity site of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico.

Even if a comet fragments apart into a fine scrim of debris, it can still cause a lot of mayhem when it comes screaming into the earth's atmosphere. Few astronomers expected the shattered remains of the Shoemaker-Levy comet to cause the huge effects they created when they slammed into Jupiter!

Comets are beautiful and dire entities. And we still don't know why they come out of certain segments of space. Like the various asteroid showers which probably are the last remains of previous comets.

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