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On the 21st December 2011, the International Space Station commander announced that he had just seen the “most amazing thing he had ever seen in space”, which is one hell of a claim for such a veteran spaceman. From his position 240miles above the Earth he had just seen the long green tail of Comet Lovejoy which was the length of twenty moons laid side by side. A spectacular sight from space, but astronomers were being wowed with astonishment on the surface of the Earth too.
But comets attract attention from more than just the boffins, since before history humankind has looked up to the sky and compared events there with events on Earth. Chief among these comparisons was the effect of eclipses and comets, for they appeared to coincide with specific events of great potency for nations or a Collective.
If the really bright ones are the most influential, it is important to look at the most surprising comet of 2011, for it was not only visible before sunrise during the Christmas period, it defied all predictions of annihilation as it plunged into the Sun’s atmosphere and survived…….
(The straight streak in the above photgraph is the International Space Station streaking over head, the comet is the long green tail)
Let’s start at the beginning…..
Comet Lovejoy was named after amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy who discovered it on December 2nd 2011. It is thought that it is part of a group of comets called the Kreutz comets that swing very close to the Sun from time to time. They are part of the debris of the Great Comet of 1106 that broke apart in the 12th century(1) It is not uncommon for small comets (about 10 meters wide) to hit the Sun, and we have an observatory in space that records one every few days, but Comet Lovejoy was much bigger and estimated to be 100 meters across.
On the 15th December, the astronomers were writing excitedly of the Comet’s brilliance as it started to get as bright as a really bright star in the sky. Because it was heading towards the Sun though, it was too near it to be spotted without specialist knowledge and equipment. At this point there was speculation that it might get bright enough to be seen by the naked eye, as Comet McNaught did back in 2007.
Little did anyone know then that Comet Lovejoy was going to do far more that simply become visible….. it was also going to prove to be invincible…..
For instead of burning up as it skimmed 120,00kms above the surface of the Sun on December 16th, the comet 
amazed all the scientists by surviving.(2) As the astronomers watched, waiting for a cloud of vapour and comet dust followed by nothing, they stared open-mouthed as the comet emerged again from the surface of the Sun…still visible and clearly not destroyed. (See photo to the right - the Comet is the barely perceptible horizontal streak in the middle and about one third of the way down the photograph.) The plucky little comet had even more up its sleeve though, for as it zipped away from the Sun, its bright tail was wagging a full 90 degrees up and down.(3) This is unexplained and very mysterious.
So to bring us up to date on 26th December….. we are now getting spectacular images of the comet’s enormous tail which is spanning the sky ahead of Sun rise everyday. It is heading out to the far reaches of the solar system again and there will be little to see soon, but until then it is proving to be breathtaking in the clearer night skies of the southern hemisphere. See photo at the top..
What does it mean? The last comet to produce such a show was Comet McNaught in January 2007. There is nothing to link that with the banking crisis of 2008, but generally we need to look at big time spans and national or planetary events like that. I think we can just toss it into the bag along with all the other Cosmic indicators of a tough few years ahead. No surprises there then….. but in the meantime we need to reflect on this comet’s resilience and surprising survival in the face of certain disintegration. How it wagged its tail like a wagging finger at the Sun as it raced away….nah nah na nah nah….. you can’t catch me…. and just hope that we should be so lucky….. And perhaps the name says it all after all!
© Alison Chester-Lambert 2011
photos taken from the following links.
(1) http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=15&month=12&year=2011
(2) http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16dec_cometlovejoy/
(3) http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=18&month=12&year=2011
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