Is this Elenin or not?

reply to post by DJW001


I see that you got some knowledge about this stuff.
Can you tell me why there is no tail visible ? If it is a comet than wouldnt we see the tail?

In this picture taken in 2007 - from the spaceobs site - the tail is visible and estimated 3.000.000 km long!
Don't you think that the tail that long should be seen on STEREO ?

reply to post by borutp

Can you tell me why there is no tail visible ? If it is a comet than wouldnt we see the tail?

There is a tail visible; it just isn't very impressive. This is due in part to it being foreshortened by the angle we are viewing it from and in part due to the fact that the comet isn't very "active." In other words, it's not outgassing as much as some other comets do. You can see a little "tailage" in this Earth based photo taken just a few days ago.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b03aa5075a9f.jpg[/atsimg]

www.aerith.net...

reply to post by borutp


As DJW said, just because you can't see the tail in that video (which is much better than the other one you linked - minus the sound that I simply muted of course) doesn't mean there isn't one. There's a good bit of other stuff going on there and that red haze could easily obscure a ton of details. If there were more volatiles on the comet, then the tail might be more visible.

There is also this to consider: What is a Comet Tail?

Some quick info there and it describes at the bottom of the article how a comet's tail can actually vanish during a CME due to magnetic reconnection as was observed most-recently with comet Encke in 2007.

reply to post by borutp


Reading comprehension is important. What Leonid is saying on his site is that Terry Lovejoy, the one who took the photo, discovered his own comet in 2007. The picture of Elenin is only a few days old. I believe it was either taken on the 19th or 20th.