Niburu - comet : Is this Hype or Real ?

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Re: Niburu - comet : Is this Hype or Real ?

...Here's a 2-D animation of the comet's flyby. Not shown is that in 3-D, the comet and Earth are not in the same plane.

I kept left clicking my mouse but could not get the laser from earth to blow the comet to smithereens.

[flintlock]

Re: Niburu - comet : Is this Hype or Real ?

I kept left clicking my mouse but could not get the laser from earth to blow the comet to smithereens.

Ha! Asteroids! Phew, phew, phew.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Niburu - comet : Is this Hype or Real ?

The Earth, as with every planetary body, has been regularly hit by Cometary debris, some of which have produced a little more than streaks in the night sky. What the original post starting this thread postulated was that there seems to be, repeat, seems to be, reason to believe that this is an object that has sufficient mass as to be able to cause measurably effects from a distance. From that starting point the postulation goes further and suggests that such a massive object might cause further measurable effects as it passes us, even though, as others have already stated, we do not get any such effects with the many other comets that pass us all the time we have been making such observations.

So this is very much a speculation based upon circumstantial evidence.

Certainly, there exists the possibility that the speculation might be accurate. But we do not have any concrete evidence and so as I said with my first comment; The only sensible thing to do is keep a quiet eye on this and see what happens.

[sishya]

Re: Niburu - comet : Is this Hype or Real ?

The comet was discovered by Leonid ELENIN, a Russian astronomer.

I've observed the comet with my own telescope. My orbit computations are pretty close to those of NASA and the Minor Planet Center; there is obviously no conspiracy.

Here's a 2-D animation of the comet's flyby. Not shown is that in 3-D, the comet and Earth are not in the same plane.


If you're looking for objects that will be close to Earth, the asteroid 2005 YU55 is much more interesting. It will closer to Earth than the Moon, late this year.

Sharky,

Since you are knowledgeable in Space Science, can you look at the following video and confirm from Google Earth wheter a certain Area is blacked out.
The co-ordinates mentioned are "5h 33m 27s, -6 10' 58". Can you check if this is really blacked out ? Maybe these co-ordinates may have moved.
This whole Nibiru scare may be a waste of time and junk science by amateurs, but was just curious to check this out.

[Sharky]

Re: Niburu - comet : Is this Hype or Real ?

OK, point taken, and happly so, but then in which case, what are we to make of the debate centred upon the idea that we are going to pass through a debris trail after the comet passes by, particularly the period highlighted between November 5th and 23rd?

Although in 2-D it looks like the orbits intersect, in 3-D they don't -- so any debris from the comet tail will miss the Earth by a big margin. I'm not saying the Earth never hits comet debris; to the contrary, it most certainly does. Some of the best meteor showers of the year are from lingering comet debris. Just not Elenin.

What the original post starting this thread postulated was that there seems to be, repeat, seems to be, reason to believe that this is an object that has sufficient mass as to be able to cause measurably effects from a distance.

The mass of a minor planet (asteroids and comets) is estimated by it's absolute magnitude (how bright an object appears at a fixed distance from Earth), combined with its albedo. Elenin has an absolute magnitude of 8.0. If it was an asteroid, that would put its size somewhere in the range of 45 to 150 km, and probably toward the lower end of that range, since comets tend to be icy and therefore have a high albedo. However, comets throw off lots of dust and ice, and so can appear brighter, and therefore larger, than they really are. IIRC, Halley's comet is less than 10 km in size. The measuring difficulty gets worse as the comet moves away from opposition (where it was on Mar 14) and closer to the Sun, since the length of the tail will appear steadily longer.

But we do not have any concrete evidence and so as I said with my first comment; The only sensible thing to do is keep a quiet eye on this and see what happens.

Well, actually, we have a lot of concrete evidence. I even have some I've collected myself (measurements of location and brightness).

Since you are knowledgeable in Space Science, can you look at the following video and confirm from Google Earth wheter a certain Area is blacked out.
The co-ordinates mentioned are "5h 33m 27s, -6 10' 58". Can you check if this is really blacked out ? Maybe these co-ordinates may have moved.
This whole Nibiru scare may be a waste of time and junk science by amateurs, but was just curious to check this out.

You can go to Google Sky and check this out yourself. Just enter the RA/dec coordinates with colons instead of letters or other punctuation: 5:33:27, -6:10:58, http://www.google.com/sky/

Apparently, there used to be a "hole" around that location. Google Sky was created by combining a huge number of images into a mosaic. Sometimes there are gaps, or holes, where images haven't been added yet. I just looked on the site now, and didn't see a gap at that location any more.

In addition, my wife heard about this gap online somewhere a few weeks ago and asked me to take a look with my scope -- so I did, and captured a few images (the spot is near the constellation of Orion). Nothing special was there down to magnitude 20+, although I did by chance happen to catch a meteor streaking by in one frame.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Niburu - comet : Is this Hype or Real ?

Thanks Sharky. When I mentioned concrete evidence, I was talking about - for the negative aspects of the original post.

At the least, this will spur a good conversation over dinner next Autumn.