Didn't see it handy on the article, but here is a viddy of Lovejoy's triumphant escape:

Youtube (new window)

Makes me gleeful.

It looks like snowballs have very good chances in hell after all.

"Through" and "around" are different, subby.

Came to point out that subby is off by about 87000 miles, happy to see it's been noted already.

I want to rename that Comet HoneyBadger2011, cuz it just went right up to the Sun and it just don't care.

Who came first, TV's Vinnie or the YouTube comment?

Grazing the atmo, but still, that thing must be made of adamantium Something. The temp there is, what, several Thousand Degrees C? Hundred thousands?

Smoking GNU: Grazing the atmo, but still, that thing must be made of adamantium Something. The temp there is, what, several Thousand Degrees C? Hundred thousands?

Kelvin. We were looking for "3000 Kelvin".

Does this mean the comet went back to 1986 to pick up a couple of humpback whales?

serial arseonist: Smoking GNU: Grazing the atmo, but still, that thing must be made of adamantium Something. The temp there is, what, several Thousand Degrees C? Hundred thousands?

Kelvin. We were looking for "3000 Kelvin".

yeah thats a huge difference from what like 3274 Celsius? when you get to the surface of the sun is 250 degrees kelvin a big difference?

Found this still pic of the event...

Link (new window)

It seems like it would be broken up by tidal forces instead of the temperature of the Sun's corona (which is hot, but not dense).

Or maybe we should go out to meet it:

Would just like to point out that while the corona is extremely hot (likely due to MHD effects dissipating lots of magnetic energy into a very tenuous plasma), the power imparted by the hot particles would be minimal compared to the heat flux off the Sun's surface.

tomWright: Or maybe we should go out to meet it:

[andscifi.com image 299x500]

Just wait for the next one. They do everything in threes.

Smoking GNU: Grazing the atmo, but still, that thing must be made of adamantium Something. The temp there is, what, several Thousand Degrees C? Hundred thousands?

RTFA. The answer you were looking for is 1.1 million C, or 2 million F.

You are all missing the fact that this happened at night. In the daytime..no way.

Behold the Liedenfrost Effect. (On mobile so no link, sorry)

Basically the sublimation of the comet at those high temperatures created an insulative layer that in fact slowed the heat transfer from the sun to the comet, allowing it to survive its close flyby.

You can demonstrate this yourself by rapidly dunking your hand in liquid nitrogen (you just can't leave it in there for more than a second) or, easier: get a pan really hot and put a drop of water on it.
You'll notice that the water rolls on the pan as if it were greased, and what's happening is that its actually floating on the layer of steam between it and the pan, preventing the whole droplet from flash boiling.

The liedenfrost effect is dependent on production of vapor/gas, mass of object, specific heats (and heat transfer coefficients), and the biggie: time. If that comet had taken a slightly longer path through the death zone, it would have been disentigrated.

0Icky0: You are all missing the fact that this happened at night. In the daytime..no way.

When is it nighttime on the sun? Is it 12 hours different to us like in New Zealand?

Need to update Green Lantard movie.

epoc_tnac: When is it nighttime on the sun? Is it 12 hours different to us like in New Zealand?

It depends which side of the sun you are talking about.

0Icky0: You are all missing the fact that this happened at night. In the daytime..no way.

Favorited for that one. In yellow.

Must've been generating a Langston field

There used to be a TV show on this wonderful network called SciFi. That show had a ship that charged itself up by flying through a star. The show was called Stargate Universe.


Then one day a horrible horrible man became the CEO of that channel. He changed the name to SyFy canceled Stargate, and many other actual Science Fiction shows. Now he shows shiatty "horror" movies and soft core gay pornography called WWE.


I haz a butthurt over this still.

It is one the best ways to slow your statis enabled craft from high relativistic speeds.

Teknowaffle: Must have had transphasic shielding.

Metaphasic.

irving47: Teknowaffle: Must have had transphasic shielding.

Metaphasic.

Headed to the submission area to correct this. Leaving happy.

buckler: Well, AROUND the sun, but at close range. Still pretty impressive, since most scienticians who knew about this stuff predicted pretty firmly that it would get obliterated. As I would, considering these things are mostly Ice. Still waiting for pictures of the tail, though. I bet it was pretty badass, what with the amount of close-range solar radiation blasting the hell out of it.

Given that so many scientists who knew about this stuff were wrong, maybe it's possible that "these things" actually are *not* mostly ice?

"It's been tremendous," Lovejoy told SPACE.com. "Apparently it's all over Facebook, and I don't use Facebook. But there's a lot of interest. I think a lot of people like the name - the Lovejoy name seems to strike a chord with people."

Came here to post a pic of Destiny. Glad someone beat me too it.

/still pissed over the ending of that show
//Atlantis as well
///WHAR MOVIES? WHAR?!

StopLurkListen: FYI, subby: "Comet Lovejoy plunged through the sun's corona "

[fusedweb.pppl.gov image 450x322]

Most people just put lime in their Corona.

dababler: There used to be a TV show on this wonderful network called SciFi. That show had a ship that charged itself up by flying through a star. The show was called Stargate Universe.


Then one day a horrible horrible man became the CEO of that channel. He changed the name to SyFy canceled Stargate, and many other actual Science Fiction shows. Now he shows shiatty "horror" movies and soft core gay pornography called WWE.


I haz a butthurt over this still.

Ehh, never really could get into Stargate. Even the movie was a big meh.

SciFi or SyFy hasn't done much to help the genre in the last 20 years. BSG was a diamond in the rough, as Capricas failure shows.

Corona sucks. It goes right through me to.

I had to read the headline three times to make sure the article wasn't about Courtney Love.

Came for the "It was aliens" guy, leaving disappointed.

Wolf_Blitzer: Came for the "It was aliens" guy, leaving disappointed.



Happy now?

that bosnian sniper: Wolf_Blitzer: Came for the "It was aliens" guy, leaving disappointed.

[i172.photobucket.com image 323x256]

Happy now?

I think he meant this guy:

crypticsatellite: It didn't go through the sun; it grazed the sun.

Still, impressive.

Yeah, the corona != the sun.

Maybe it went through a sunspot, just like Checkers and Pogo.