With all the news about the comet recently, I started to wonder what it would look like here on Earth if some day a comet that came in really close to the sun and formed a huge tail had its tail cross right into the path of Earth's orbit around the sun at the exact moment Earth crossed it. Would the entire night sky be lit up as bright as day? Would it just look like there was an aurora everywhere on Earth. Would it look like an aurora everywhere plus one spectacular meteor shower!!? Would the Earth block the formation of the tail so the dark side saw nothing? Thinking about it really made me want to see what it would be like. What do you think?
2007-11-15 18:11:59 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Uneducated Guess failed to see the point of the question.
2007-11-15 18:23:50 · update #1
Thats a really interesting question.
The tail of a comet are largely dust, made predominately of little bits of rock and carbon. The dust tail shines by reflecting sunlight. Extending past the dust is the comet's ion tail composed mostly of ions of water, carbon monoxide, and cyanogen.
If Earth went through a comet's tail it would experience a meteor shower like no other we've seen before as the dust burned up in the atmosphere. There would also be an aurora-like light show as the ions in the ion tail recombined with charged particles in our atmosphere. The amount of light generated would depend entirely on the quantity of matter in the comet tail.
As the tail is formed by the solar wind blowing material off the comet head, then it would be possible for the Earth to block this - however the are of space where this would happen would be very small (rather like the very small area of a total solar eclipse on Earth).
2007-11-15 18:42:10 · answer #1 · answered by the_lipsiot 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Earth does pass through the tail of various comets. That's the main reason we have periodic meteor showers. My thinking about a comet coming as close to us as you describe is that it would be drawn towards Earth by our gravity and have a good chance of impacting. If it did somehow just barely miss us, I'm not at all sure that the tail would present much of a spectacle because the density of cometary tails runs to only around 10^ minus 16 grams/cubic centimeter.
2007-11-15 18:25:48 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Well we just got to hope nothing bad happens =]
2007-11-15 18:20:26 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
uh noooo because to see it would have to be night hellooo and can't see the light without the sun!
2007-11-15 18:15:24 · answer #4 · answered by Just Me 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋