Comet Honda...Look at how close it is on the JPL

It is expected to be at it's closest approach on Aug 17-18.

ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

Is it going to be visible to the naked eye at its closest to earth?

And nothing suppose to happen right? i mean it is just a comet and its just passing through

Hey for first Post of a newbie

ruh roh. at its closest point the earth is directly between the comet and the sun. coincidence much?

it is 0.06 AU from Earth at that point.

Originally posted by blazenresearcher
It is expected to be at it's closest approach on Aug 17-18.

ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

edit on 6-8-2011 by blazenresearcher because: (no reason given)

actually the 16th will be the closest to earth see link ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

rotate the diagram, from one view it looks close (2D top view), but its very far from another view in other words it passes under earth, or over it depending on how you look at our solar system.

comet elenin is more interesting

Isn't comet Levy supposed to make a pass around the same time?

Originally posted by IceScales
Is it going to be visible to the naked eye at its closest to earth?

And nothing suppose to happen right? i mean it is just a comet and its just passing through

Hey for first Post of a newbie

first question: yes, I think, but unless you know a lot about astronomy it will be hard to pick out the comet from a normal star.
yeah, don't worry about it.

Originally posted by blazenresearcher
It is expected to be at it's closest approach on Aug 17-18.

ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

edit on 6-8-2011 by blazenresearcher because: (no reason given)

wow aug 16th 0.067 AU Earth distance I didn't know it will also be so close while the others are also

It's not close at all.
It will be about 23.4 times the distance of
the moon from us.

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

On Aug.22 we have asteroid 2009 AV also. With the sun flaring up, it is something to pay attention to, with 3 comets and I believe 4 asteroids within a short period of each other & crossing in and out of our orbit.

Attention will be paid only due to proximitys for observations. All of these tiny bodies passing by will have near zero gravitational effects on us, and they do not carry any mysterious electrical charges. The effects are comparable to throwing a tennis ball on to the middle of Australia. Pulling your Mini Cooper out of your garage has more tidal effect on earth than any of these passing bodies. They are also traveling more than twice earth escape velocity.

Wow, did we have 3 CMEs last time it came by also??

Is it my imagination....or are comets and asteroids poppin' up a lot lately? What the heck is going on, up in space. Also, didn't they just launch Juno to Jupiter? It seems like a lot of NASA activity going on, as well.

Question: Is it possible for a CME to PUSH one of these out of orbit?

Ive notice alot since i started realizing the earth changing. the more you understand the more you see. but it could be that there is alot of activity maybe its that time of the year

reply to post by nuttin4U


Observational detection methods and internet communications have grown leaps and bounds in the last 15 years. Ever think about that?

reply to post by nuttin4U


There are most likely the same number of asteroids and comets come near earth, its just that we are spotting more and more of them. With better technologies we are finding more and more of them.The same thing kinda happened with natural disasters there's relatively the same amount people just hear about more of them because of the internet. If an earth quake in Chile happened 20 years ago you probably wouldn't have heard a peep about it in the US or in Europe. Today its on the net in seconds.

Im Still Young (19) and not very educated in astronomy. Heh everything in the sky thats bright and if its unusual to me its strange...but im interested, i jus dont wanna end up like certain people. thats why i asked if honda was going to cause us any harm. thanks Ghost. I should do some more research on where honda will be visible from and what i need and at what time. Fascinated by space and the only thing i can found is the big dipper

Originally posted by Ghost375
ruh roh. at its closest point the earth is directly between the comet and the sun. coincidence much?

No, at its closest point (0.0603 AU), the Earth is not exactly between the comet and the Sun, as you can see if you use the zoom function on the NASA site. Also, the comet is not on the same plane as the Sun-Earth pair, so the Earth cannot be between the Sun and the comet.

I think that the closest it will be for the Earth to be between the Sun and the comet would be on August 13, while the closest point is on August 15.

reply to post by ArMaP


One of the first things I do when viewing a JPL orbital projection is tilt the view to the ecliptic plane, to see how far off a comet or asteroid really is. This all started with the close interlunar approach of asteroid 2005 YU55, and not surprisingly my broad brushstroke method of estimating the real distance proved to be quite accurate, about 240,000 km away from close approach to the Moon.

Just disregard my caption of km X 10, I'm not sure what I was thinking then, but the final figure is unscientifically spot on.