As I'm sure most of you are aware at this stage, I'm abit conservative when it comes to comet predictions, but a comet has been discovered in the past few days that could literally be a jaw dropping event.
A new comet named ISON has been discovered beyond Jupiter and its on the way in!
A number of stats to consider,
1, This comet will come within 2 million miles of the suns surface, that is amazingly close!!
2, it comes within 40 million miles of Earth, that is a flyby in astronomical terms
3, its orbit has been approximately deduced, viewing it is going to be very favorable from the northern hemisphere, so we'll see it.
Some say that this is going to be the best comet in the last few hundred years, some say its going to be at mag -16, that's brighter then the full Moon, visible in daytime, cast a tail that fills the sky, a once in a civilization event and so on.....
To temper this, there are a number of factors to ponder, comets passing that close to the Sun experience furnace like temperatures, the comet could be disrupted/vaporized/destroyed by such a close encounter, the comet could break up as it nears the Sun and form a string of pearls which could be an unbelievable view!
OR this comet could be a damp squib and we not see as whole lot.
Some have made comparisons of this comets orbit to the great comet of 1680, the orbits of both are very similar and might indicate that the 2 comets came from the same object. If they're made of the same material, it would indicate that the comet could be bright.
Comets are fickle beasts, highly unpredictable, and predictions can be completely wrong and many comet predictions are just not believable. However this comets stats look real good and if the comet is only half as good as the predictions, then this comet could make other comets such as Hale-Bopp and McNaught look like firecrackers.
Lets hope so, time will tell.
