Comet C/2012 S1 ISON

[Maxwell Comp]

It is such a shame that it died in non-spectacular fashion. It would be wonderful if it had somehow presented a 'threat' to Earth (but the type of threat that is only a threat according to the most ratings-obsessed media). It's been a while since we had an End Of The World, and the 2012 Mayan one wasn't even celebrated much. The last good End Of The World was Y2K. We need some type of once-a-decade celebration. New Year's is every year of course, the Olympics are every 4 years (or every 2 years if you include winter Olympics). So, something once every 10 years would fit right in.

Doesn't the sun have a cycle duration of about 11 years? We should start a movement to predict the end of each cycle, and celebrate that. The prediction doesn't need to be particularly accurate, it is just an excuse to celebrate.

[Lohan2008]

Though the exact time of ISON's death is uncertain it does appear to be no more. All that is left is a cloud of debris without a nucleus," Alex Young of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center told AFP in an email on Tuesday.

Dubbed the "Christmas Comet", the icy giant described as a massive, dirty snowball skimmed past the Sun at a distance of just 1.1 million kilometres around 1830 GMT on Thursday (0530 AEDT on Friday).

It had been estimated that ISON would undergo temperatures of 2700 Celsius and lose three million tonnes of its mass per second as it made its journey around the sun.

Most astronomers had predicted the comet, with an estimated diameter of some 1.2 kilometres, would not survive the flypast.

Still, some observers had held out a sliver of hope that the 4.5 billion-year-old comet might have survived.

Karl Battams, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, wrote a brief obituary for the comet, formally known as C/2012 S1 (ISON) after the telescope called the International Scientific Optical Network used by the Russian astronomers who spotted it in 2012.

"Never one to follow convention, ISON lived a dynamic and unpredictable life, alternating between periods of quiet reflection and violent outburst," Battams wrote.

"Survived by approximately several trillion siblings, Comet ISON leaves behind an unprecedented legacy for astronomers, and the eternal gratitude of an enthralled global audience."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/2013/12/04/13/07/comet-ison-is-confirmed-dead

[Kilmeister]

I recall last week that the Science Channel was advertising a show scheduled for 3 Dec called "ISON: Comet of the Century". I wonder if it will still air?

I just saw an ad for it again, but they've changed to voiceover to past tense ... "it was 3 miles wide" etc.