Backward green comet makes one-time only visit

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer Tue Feb 17, 3:23 pm ET

WASHINGTON – An odd, greenish backward-flying comet is zipping by Earth this month, as it takes its only trip toward the sun from the farthest edges of the solar system. The comet is called Lulin, and there’s a chance it can be seen with the naked eye — far from city lights, astronomers say. But you’ll most likely need a telescope, or at least binoculars, to spot it.

Close Encounters of the Worst Kind: How Safe Are We from Killer Asteroids?

Features –  February 12, 2009

Largest near-Earth objects are already well characterized, but smaller ones could surprise

By John Matson

In 1998, the year Deep Impact and Armageddon dueled for the attentions of apocalypse-from-the-heavens moviegoers, Congress tapped NASA to prevent such a cosmic cataclysm from becoming reality. The space agency was charged with cataloguing over the next decade the vast majority of nearby space objects larger than 0.62 mile (one kilometer) in size—those asteroids, and more rarely comets, capable of inflicting catastrophic damage to Earth.

Eleven years later—just behind schedule—the task appears to be nearly complete. Congress had requested that 90 percent of these large near-Earth objects (NEOs) be catalogued, and around 800 of them, roughly 80 to 85 percent of the entire population, have been tallied. (Astronomers can estimate how much of the lot has been surveyed by studying the gradual drop-off in discovery rates.) According to NASA’s impact-threat catalogue, only two of the kilometer-size NEOs so far identified pose a very slim risk in the next century; the more threatening of the two has a one in 116,000,000 chance of colliding with Earth. (That object, known as 2009 CR2, was just discovered last week; with further observation it may prove not to be a threat at all.)

Now sky sentries are turning their gaze to smaller NEOs. In 2005 Congress asked NASA to extend its survey to include objects as small as 460 feet (140 meters) across—not dinosaur-killers but still big enough to outdo the largest nuclear weapon ever tested if they ever cross paths with Earth. “The objects that people who have studied the risk from this sort of thing are worried about are the 300-meter [1,000-foot] class of objects,” says astronomer Edward Beshore, co-investigator for the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) at the University of Arizona, currently the most prolific NEO-finding program. “They could create regional destruction. A 300-meter object landing off the western coast of the U.S. could inundate coastal cities” with a massive tsunami, Beshore adds.

The task will be complicated by the sheer number of such objects and by their diminished brightness—smaller asteroids and comets reflect less light and so more easily escape detection. “Like gravel in a stream bank, there are more smaller objects than there are larger objects,” Beshore says. “And so we expect to find something on the order of 50,000 to 60,000 [near-Earth] objects down to 140 meters in size.” So far, only 4,000 or so NEOs in that size range have been tracked down.

Astronomer Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program office, says officials are studying the best way to tackle the 140-meter challenge: Should efforts be focused on ground-based observations, as they have been in the kilometer-size census? Or, would a space-borne infrared telescope be more effective? Whatever the case, Beshore says, better instruments are needed to meet Congress’s request that 90 percent of the smaller group be tracked by 2020. “With the systems that are currently online,” he says, “you’d be looking at decades before you could begin to approach finishing that problem.”

An even more intractable problem would be locating the plentiful NEOs in the 30-meter-plus range, which probably number in the millions. According to Clark Chapman, a space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., the odds of our planet encountering one of those bodies in the next century might be as high as 50 percent. Such an object would not impact the ground but would produce a multimegaton airburst in the lower stratosphere, Chapman says. Over a populated area with flimsy structures, that could be deadly, but in the more likely event of an explosion over the ocean, the effects would be relatively minor.

At present, the most threatening known asteroids all have a relatively low probability of ever striking Earth. One small body called 2007 VK184, which is 130 meters (425 feet) in diameter, has about a one in 3,000 chance of smacking into the planet in 2048. A much larger asteroid known as 1999 RQ36, 560 meters (1,800 feet) across, packs a more significant impact probability of one in 1,400, but not for another 160 years. It’s worth noting that over time these odds of impact are often revised, sometimes negating the objects’ threat entirely, as further observations better define NEO orbits or as those orbits are deformed by the gravitational pull of celestial bodies.

“That’s one of our main problems—as soon as you make a very close approach to a planet, including Earth, the subsequent motion gets much less certain,” Yeomans says. “The small errors you have in the orbit get magnified as a result of the close approach.”

One tiny asteroid that did strike, burning up on entry, provided a test of CSS and NASA’s efforts. In October, a CSS observer picked up a relatively common two-meter (six-foot) object at close range, and astronomers correctly predicted that it would disintegrate over northern Africa the next night. Although last-minute discovery of a larger NEO would be problematic for evacuations, Yeomans notes that being able to pinpoint the location of a brilliant fireball even hours in advance can have great geopolitical value. Armed with accurate NEO information, scientists can warn “countries that might be arguing with one another that this kiloton blast in the sky is not a man-made event,” he says. “What if this thing were spotted over the border between Pakistan and India? It could have been a real problem had it not been predicted ahead of time.”

For larger inbound NEOs, of course, early detection might allow human intervention to skirt catastrophe. Fulfilling lawmakers’ mandate for tracking 90 percent of 140-meter objects would “retire 99 percent of the risk to Earth from all objects of all sizes,” Yeomans says. “By retire, I mean, if we know they’re coming and they pose a threat, we have the technology to deal with it”—options include detonation or disrupting the object’s orbit by ramming into it or tugging it off-course with a nearby spacecraft. “There’s any number of ways to mitigate,” he says, “but you have to find them well in advance of a threatening encounter in order to undertake any of them.”

<!–Original Article and Photos

Green Comet Approaches Earth

Comet Lulin is a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now.

Provided by NASA, Washington, DC

Amateur astronomer Jack Newton took this image of Comet Lulin with his 14-inch telescope on February 1, 2009, from his backyard observatory in Portal, Arizona. [View Larger Image] February 9, 2009 In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life – a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named “Hale” and “Bopp” had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day. And one day, he did. Fast forward to a summer afternoon in July 2007. Ye, now 19 years old and a student of meteorology at China’s Sun Yat-sen University, bent over his desk to stare at a black-and-white star field. The photo was taken nights before by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin on “sky patrol” at the Lulin Observatory. Ye’s finger moved from point to point – and stopped. One of the stars was not a star, it was a comet, and this time Ye saw it first. Comet Lulin, named after the observatory in Taiwan where the discovery-photo was taken, is now approaching Earth. “It is a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now,” said Ye. The comet makes its closest approach to Earth (0.41 AU) February 24, 2009. Current estimates peg the maximum brightness at 4th or 5th magnitude, which means dark country skies would be required to see it. No one can say for sure, however, because this appears to be Lulin’s first visit to the inner solar system and its first exposure to intense sunlight. Surprises are possible. Lulin’s green color comes from the gases that make up its Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Jets spewing from the comet’s nucleus contain cyanogen (CN – a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C2). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space. In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley. False alarm. The wispy tail of the comet couldn’t penetrate Earth’s dense atmosphere; even if it had penetrated, there wasn’t enough cyanogen to cause real trouble. Comet Lulin will cause even less trouble than Halley did. At closest approach in late February, Lulin will stop 38 million miles (61 million kilometers) short of Earth, utterly harmless.

Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) should approach 6th magnitude near the end of February. Follow the fuzzy blob this month as it races westward from Libra to Leo. Astronomy: Roen Kelly [View Larger Image] To see Comet Lulin with your eyes, set your alarm for 3 a.m. The comet rises a few hours before the Sun and may be found about one-third of the way up the southern sky before dawn. Here are some dates when it is especially easy to find: February 16th: Comet Lulin passes Spica in the constellation Virgo. Spica is a star of first magnitude and a guidepost even city astronomers cannot miss. A finder scope pointed at Spica will capture Comet Lulin in the field of view, centering the optics within a nudge of both objects. February 24th: Closest approach! On this special morning, Lulin will lay just a few degrees from Saturn in the constellation Leo. Saturn is obvious to the unaided eye, and Lulin could be as well. If this doesn’t draw you out of bed, nothing will. Ye notes that Comet Lulin is remarkable not only for its rare beauty, but also for its rare manner of discovery. “This is a ‘comet of collaboration’ between Taiwanese and Chinese astronomers,” he said. “The discovery could not have been made without a contribution from both sides of the Strait that separates our countries. Chi Sheng Lin and other members of the Lulin Observatory staff enabled me to get the images I wanted, while I analyzed the data and found the comet.”

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