Exploding Comet

By Jene' Young Meteorologist

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Published: Wed, October 31, 2007 - 5:09 pm
Last Updated: Thu, November 01, 2007 - 10:29 am

Jene' Young

Most people have heard of Halley's Comet, and some people have even seen it.
Well now a comet is more or less exploding, or growing in size.
Scientists around the world have no idea why.

Alan Waldo has lived in Seven Hills for over twenty three years.
His neighborhood is the perfect spot for his star gazing hobby.
Waldo says, "Looking at the stars and seeing galaxies and nebulas, it's just hard to look at stuff like that and not know that there is a creator, it's just beautiful to me, I love that."

Alan's interest in the sky started long ago, with less than spectacular equipment.
"My mother bought me a department store telescope, they can be troublesome. Now I got better equipment as I got older, you know, men and boys and their toys."
Last week, Alan got word of a new mystery in space.
"I started getting emails about this comet that just exploded for lack of a better word and the brightness is just unreal. It was so dim, that you had to have a really good telescope to see it. In less than 24 hours, you can look up there and see it with your naked eye.

This comet explosion has scientists puzzled.
Dr. Kent Clark is a physics professor at the University of South Alabama.
He says he hasn’t seen or heard any good idea on the comets incredible brightness.

The comet is named 17P Holmes.
Dr. Clark says, "17P means it was the 17th periodical comet discovered. The very first one was Halley's Comet. So it's called 1P. Periodic means it comes back, it's in an elliptical orbit and it will return. It goes through the edge of solar system and come back. It was discovered in 1892 by somebody named Holmes."

If you look at a star chart, 17P Holmes is located in the northeast sky, near the constellation Perseus.
It will look like star to the naked eye. Keep in mind, the comet is traveling away from us, so you will not see a tale.

Before the explosion, the center of the comet was only a few miles wide but Dr. Clark says, "With this explosion that has taken place, it is spreading material out and filled a volume almost as big as the sun."

What makes this a bigger mystery is that the comet is traveling away from the sun, so it's not heating up which would explain an explosion. As scientists continue to toss around theories, the real answer is up in the air.

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