Could the Break-up of ISON Cause a Destructive Comet (Meteor) Shower on Earth?

1questioner
I created this thread because I truly didn't know the answer to whether or not the break-up of ISON was a cause for concern. I know we have a lot of knowledgeable members here on ATS and I was hopeful I would get a convincing answer that would alleviate my concern.

However, after a full day of my OP being posted my question has not been convincingly answered. Does this mean that we really don't know what ISON is going to do? And if that is the case, shouldn't someone in authority warn us? Or, is this a case of no one is able to do anything about anyway so why say something?

If anyone has a convincing answer, I for one would like to hear it.

Every comet that has made it to the Sun, weather it has made perihelion, got sucked directly into the Sun, or was destroyed after perihelion, like ISON, leaves a debris trail that will be in relatively the same orbit for a very long time. We encounter them as meteor showers, like the Perseids, Leonids, Orionids.... all the orbital debris rings left by comets that the Earth will intersect on it's journey around the Sun.

There are thousands, perhaps millions of cometary debris trails of past comets orbiting the Sun, in the same relative orbits they had when they visited the inner Solar System. Most of these comets are long dead, however this debris stays in those orbits. The Earth will intersect only a small number, those that have a possibility of intersecting Earths orbit. Over time, the planets will bleed the ones that they intersect, dry of particles, but it could take millions and billions of years.

reply to post by Phage

A parking meter? Electric meter? Water meter?

Hahaha you mac users. It's funny that you choose this error to show your brilliance when in reality to any non Mac user the fact that I meant to say METEOR should have been obvious.

But to answer your question, if a parking, electric, water or any other meter or a meteor was heading right for your Mac's MAC address you would never know about it until it hit you on the noggin.

BTW, you are my meter Phage. Anyone who considers you to have an ounce of intelligence beyond your unique ability to scrap, copy, and past information off the internet like a high priced blackhat program must, like you, be a Mac user lol. And trust me judging by your followers, there are quite a few.

I can only hope I am now understood....but we shall see about that.

Whom are you quoting?

Lemmings with the memory of a gnat....I can draw a picture if that will help you understand better. Or maybe a quicktime MP4 video, you know...for your Mac, might help.

What, pray tell, exactly did NASA say about the meteorite in Russia and what does it have to do with our ex-comet?

*facepalm*

NASA said NOTHING! NADA! ZIP! about the electric, water powered, parking meter that blew up in Russia's atmosphere. That's my whole point.

They were looking at another meteor, telling the whole world it would be OK and nothing would happen that could.

Which is persistently why saying an unusually behaving comet that is now been reduced to a shotgun spray a quarter the size of the sun is not going have any impact on Earth is about as foolish as saying pointing a loaded shotgun above your face is not dangerous unless you intentionally pull the trigger. Especially because we have more knowledge of what could happen, accident or no, while pointing a loaded shotgun above our head. How much do we know about the fragments, powder or anything else about this comet? And a better question that is not being asked is what don't we know beyond the little we do know about the new found status of this comet.

Ok. What are you, a non-lemming, going to do about it, you rat? BTW, that lemming story? It's a fabrication. Lemmings don't jump off cliffs. They don't commit suicide. But go ahead and believe it (and that gravity is random) if it makes you happy.

Find that on Google Safari did ya?

Well, a lemming is still a lemming, what ever it does, and us rats can survive any sinking ship, so...hahaha.

BTW gravity is the acceleration of universal inflation. An attractive force that if met with negative energy or rather negative pressure becomes a repulsive force. Who the hell thinks gravity is random now a days?

Try to scrap that info of the net ya Mac user.

The Rat.

reply to post by Pinkorchid

no its a dirty snow ball that didn't melt near the Sun. Why? , the Sun wasn't hot enough.

Clearly you've never had fried ice cream...

How does battered ice cream not melt in near 200°C oil???

reply to post by AlphaHawk


Clearly you are trying to equate the 200 centergade temperature of a dirty chip fryer to that of this:_

The temperature rises from the surface of the Sun inward towards the very hot center of the Sun where it reaches about 27,000,000 Fahrenheit (15,000,000 Celsius). The temperature of the Sun also rises from the surface outward into the Solar atmosphere. The uppermost layer of the Solar atmosphere, called the corona, reaches temperatures of millions of degrees.

That one may work very well with the fourth graders lol

reply to post by Pinkorchid


It's a fair comparison.

The comet is just not near the sun long enough.

Same as the deep fried ice cream, it's only in the fryer for seconds and it's cold enough to last whilst in the fryer.

Sorry if fourth grader science mystifies you..

When the comet/asteroid hit Jupiter, it was apparently ripped apart by Jupiters immense gravity. After breaking up, it may very well have followed the same path, but it was not compacted into one space, pieces trailed behind, causing it to hit Jupiter in several places along a stretch of area much larger than the earth.

So comet ison isn't just where comet ison was supposed to be. If there was any chance that we might travel through its dust tail, that tail could now be inhabited by quarter mile, or eighth of a mile wide chunks. I don't know how big the pieces are so maybe they are tiny.

Also, it may still follow the same path, but will it keep the same speed? Would any difference in schedule bring it closer?

reply to post by Mamatus


you seem so sure of that..
did you predict the behavior of Ison as it went around the sun correctly too?.. the time it took, the bright & dull intervals.. ?

Scientists aren't the only ones learning new things every day!

reply to post by 3n19m470


ISON's path hasn't and won't change, it's not coming anywhere near earth and the only interaction earth will have with ISON, is when it passes through its dust trail that it left back in November.

It may well be several large chunks of rock now but it' will be well and truly above elliptic when it comes to its closest approach to earth.

This vid should help with what I'm saying:

I didn't follow ISON for two days after it so called past the sun so I really don't know the latest of this.. but seeing this thread it seems ISON plumed out.. .?

But small pieces wandering around I hope they don't react like shot hail from shotguns . I still have that pictures in my mind from that kid with pieces if meteor in the head...

Agit8dChop
reply to post by Mamatus

 

you seem so sure of that..
did you predict the behavior of Ison as it went around the sun correctly too?.. the time it took, the bright & dull intervals.. ?

Scientists aren't the only ones learning new things every day!

One thing that is a certainty in orbital mechanics is gravity and it's influence on objects in space.

If it wasn't a certainty, then spacecraft like Cassini and Galileo would never have reached their destinations.

Cassini orbited Venus, Earth and Jupiter on its way to Saturn, using their gravitational pull to make speed and course adjustments...all calculated here on earth before launch.

One thing that is a certainty in orbital mechanics is gravity and it's influence on objects in space. 

But mass will also be part of it right ?I mean , the comet has significantly reduced to small parts that have no equal mass as before right? I don't know what the expanding pressures are when a comet falls appart and the distance it has to travel before coming close to earh that have to be correct me if im wrong forty million kilometer . What is the rate of expansion of the destroyed comet ? In time it has to travel to earth? If this could be calculated then IMHO could give some estimation what this could do?
Or do I sound so stupid?

reply to post by ZeussusZ


So you are saying the trajectory has changed? Guess we just wait and see then.

reply to post by 0bserver1

But mass will also be part of it right ?I

No. The fragments are in freefall. The mass of a falling object does not affect its fall. Galileo demonstrated that quite effectively and Newton came up with the math for it.

I don't know what the expanding pressures are when a comet falls appart and the distance it has to travel before coming close to earh that have to be correct me if im wrong forty million kilometer . What is the rate of expansion of the destroyed comet ?

Not much. It just sort of crumbled. The fragments will drift apart over time but they are not zipping off in radically different directions.
It's 40 million miles, about the same distance that Venus is from us now.

Pinkorchid
reply to post by AlphaHawk

 

Clearly you are trying to equate the 200 centergade temperature of a dirty chip fryer to that of this:

And you are clearly ignoring the fact that the corona is almost pure vacuum. ISON wouldn't be heated by the corona, it would be heated by the radiation from the Sun.

~~~

To answer the OP, ISON's fragments continue on the same trajectory, only very slowly drifting apart. ISON's trajectory is so far away from Earth that there is absolutely no chance of those fragments getting all the way here.

We might get an ordinary meteor shower if there will be some dust left along the trajectory and Earth intersects it.

reply to post by AlphaHawk


Ok lets cryogenically freeze you and put you on a trip round the Sun and see what comes out the other side.

reply to post by Phage


Thanks that makes it all clear , somehow I had the feeling that such great distance between us and those fragments couldn't almost mean anything. .