Comet Ison....The facts

[trazor]

Yesterday morning, driving to work, I happen to listen to this guy on Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03hwbqz/Today_20_11_2013/

Listen from 50 minutes in.......Objects get knocked out of the Oort cloud by the  "occasional passing Star".

My flabber is still gasted.

[Psychobilly]

More info here...

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs&Display=OverviewLong

Peter...

[skybadger]

I listened too, it was rubbish. The segment immediately prior to the 7am news anyway. 

Look up and see the comet with no tail .... Or so it was stated

Sheesh.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Listen from 50 minutes in.......Objects get knocked out of the Oort cloud by the  "occasional passing Star".

My flabber is still gasted.

Sounds like something has been lost in translation. It's not totally wrong, objects in the Oort cloud are gravitationally perturbed by passing stars, which can send more comets into the inner solar system.

[nicks90]

on a simillar note - theres a comet ison special on discovery channel being advertised. The commentator was saying ison is bigger than australia..........................................

I was under the impression it was about 5km across.

[CAMOMAN]

When do these specials come on what channel and what times in the US thanks

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[stevepeverall]

Listen from 50 minutes in.......Objects get knocked out of the Oort cloud by the  "occasional passing Star".

This reminds me of a book called 'Nemesis The Death Star' which I read as a teenager about 25 years ago.

It was written by a physicist called Dr Richard Muller who proposes the above as an explanation for mass extinctions which occur periodically every 26 million years.

These bands of mass extinctions can be seen in rock strata and are always accompanied by the presence of a very rare element called iridium which can only come from outer space.

He proposes just the above, where another stars gravity dislodges comets from the Oort Comet Cloud sending them spiralling towards the sun/ earth. He also dicusses other possibilities and why they can be ruled out.

The book was met with scepticism within the scientific community but is written by a scientist and is backed up by solid scientific facts and to my knowledge none of the facts have been disproven to this date.

It's a classic read.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/770018.Nemesis#other_reviews

[Vega]

on a simillar note - theres a comet ison special on discovery channel being advertised. The commentator was saying ison is bigger than australia..........................................

I was under the impression it was about 5km across.

He may have been referring to ISON's gaseus atmosphere which from what I remember reading from a NASA article shortly after the first Hubble image, they did use Australia as a size comparison.