This could be NEAT

Posted on March 26, 2004 in Fact-Dropping

There are a pair of comets on the way and one of them — discovered about fifty miles away as the crow flies at Mount Palomar — could turn a tail for us in the May sky. NEAT Q4 isn’t being drummed up by the media after the infamous Kohoutek disaster of 1973. Spacewatch notes:

Most new comets are notoriously unpredictable, and there is no guarantee that comet NEAT won’t fizzle. The big question is whether this activity is the sign of a truly great comet or just a temporary flare-up of an ordinary one.

A “new” comet in a parabolic orbit – that is, a comet that has never passed near the Sun before – may be covered with very volatile material, such as frozen carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide. These ices tend to vaporize far from the Sun, giving a distant comet a surge in brightness that can raise unrealistic expectations. Several such flops appeared last century….

Unfortunately, as of this writing, calculations by orbital experts suggests that Comet NEAT may be traveling in a parabolic orbit, hinting that it may indeed be a new comet, like Kohoutek. This however, doesn’t automatically mean that Comet NEAT will fizzle-out, since not all-new comets become duds. Comet Arend-Roland is an outstanding exception, a first-timer that put on a spectacular show in April 1957.

If it indeed stays on its current prescribed path, Comet NEAT will pass closest to the Earth on May 7, 2004 at a distance of just under 30 million miles (48.3 million kilometers). It will appear to rise out of the evening twilight during the first week of May 2004 and move northward from Canis Major, through Cancer by midmonth and on into Ursa Major by month’s end.

There’s a chance that we’ll have a two comet show . A second comet called LINEAR is due to pop up over the horizon in April, duck down, and return in June.

The spring could be a fine season for astronomy indeed.

I’m checking the parts on the old 3 inch refractor myself. Just in case.

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There’s also a Transit of Venus happening on June 8, 2004, but that’s not going to be visible here in California. Yawn.