Periodic Comet 17P/Holmes just brightened by 15 magnitudes overnight
That means it went from boringly dim, to being naked eye visible, and it is high in the northern sky, a nice target for binoculars or small telescope if you have cold clear skies and a view to the north.
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tags: comet holmes, night sky, astronomy
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The way I explained the 'directions' to my 80 yr old mom:
Look at Cassiopeia (the W in the sky, she knows). The sharp V part points to the Andromeda nebula. The inner leg of the blunt V points to the comet: extend it about 5 or 6 times...
The first bright evening she saw it!
HOLMES "colors" last nite, at least to me here on Guam, was reddish, which IMO indicates that its [rocky? iron?] core is breaking up and dividing into two or more major pieces. The comet is reportedly on its way out of our system - iff the comet is indeed breaking up as I believe it is, do you believe there will be a consequent loss or reduction in its "normal" gravity and momentum, hence allowing the now-weakened comet pieces to be diverted or pulled by outside factors towards Earth's neighboring planets, OR will the comet simply break up but remain close together as maintained by natural inertial forces???
hey
you didn't say what you were observing with, but unless you have a rather big 'scope you're probably seeing the extended coma
there are spectra of the coma, and it shows some classic cometary features, including prominent C2 emission (in the green). Mostly the colour is reflected sunlight with some dust absorption.
velocity data suggest relatively symmetric outburst, which is consistent with volatiles breaking out from an inner cavity and driving a dust outflow, rather than actual breakup.
If it did breakup, we'll see the separation soon, it does happen. Dust features suggest a second outburst may be possible, but my reading of that is that is speculative
17P/Holmes orbit is exterior to the Earths - it'd require fairly significant impulse to move it towards any planet crossing. Long term the danger is jovian gravitational perturbations, I expect some medium term orbital simulations have been done but I do not know the results and could not find any references