MANILA -- Astronomers and enthusiasts have been waiting for a once in a lifetime chance of seeing a comet in the sky. Comet ISON, dubbed as the "Comet of the Century," might disappoint the anticipating viewers from the Earth as it slowly disintegrates during its encounter with the sun.
Comet ISON is an icy object that came from the Oort Cloud -- a giant swarm of icy rocks and boulders surrounding the solar system. It was first spotted by astronomers in September 2012, when it was still 585 million light years away from the Earth.
Dr. Hermann Böhnhardt of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, one of the institutions that analyzed the comet's early activity, told Sun.Star in an email that Comet ISON is special as it is a sun-grazing comets or those which pass very near the sun, sometimes even within a few thousand kilometers from the sun's surface.
However, not all sun-grazers are lucky enough to survive the tremendous heat of the sun. The smaller ones disintegrate. But Comet ISON, Böhnhardt said, "Unlike many of its colleagues it is a brighter and larger object."
Comet ISON has been slowly disintegrating as of this time. It is still not certain whether it can be seen in the Philippines.
Filipino astronomer Frederick Gabriana told Sun.Star, "(T)his will depend if it will survive. It is currently disintegrating already."
"It is still alive, but we don't know in the next two days if it will totally disintegrate or not. It will pass closest to the sun on November 28 about 7 p.m. GMT (November 29 about 3 a.m. Philippine Standard Time), and after that we will know if it survives its brush with the sun or not," he added.
Comet ISON should be observable to the naked eye during the first days of December if it will survive, Böhnhardt said.
"During December the comet will move quickly north in the sky and will become visible during longer night hours, although it will become fainter. It is expected to be a naked eye object although it is difficult to predict how bright it will be," he said.
Gabriana also said, "The good news is that a disintegrating comet grows brighter due to more surface area exposed to the sun. So if it dies, we may see one final outburst. If it survives, we will see a comet show in the early evenings of December."
Meanwhile, NASA said on its website, "This is its very first trip around the sun, which means it is still made of pristine matter from the earliest days of the solar system’s formation, its top layers never having been lost by a trip near the sun."
But it doesn't mean that if the comet disintegrates completely, scientists will stop studying ISON.
NASA said, "Even if the comet does not survive, tracking its journey will help scientists understand what the comet is made of, how it reacts to its environment, and what this explains about the origins of the solar system. Closer to the sun, watching how the comet and its tail interact with the vast solar atmosphere can teach scientists more about the sun itself."
Astronomers around the globe study comets -- icy bodies with a visible "atmosphere" called a "coma" and a tail -- like ISON to as they are "believed to represent widely unmodified objects from the formation period of the planetary system," Böhnhardt said.
Because they contain primordial material from 4.6 billion years ago, which cannot be found in planets and asteroids anymore, they have been the subject of curiosity of scientists.
Böhnhardt also said, "Comets also contain organic material and even life relevant amino acids were recently found in dust return from a comet flyby."
He also said that many scientists believe that comets can lead to reasons on why Earth has water, a primary indication of life.
(Sunnex)
Will Comet ISON be seen in the Philippine skies? | Sun.Star
Will Comet ISON be seen in the Philippine skies?
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